what is an epic in jira?

An epic is often a larger user story that is broken down into smaller stories in order to be worked on.

The important thing to note about epics is that they aren’t just an agile tool. Teams of all work styles can benefit from the epic in Jira because an epic can be a feature, a waterfall project, or just a way to group similar tickets together.

Epics are generally delivered over a set of sprints and may encompass multiple teams, on multiple projects, tracked across multiple boards.

How to Create Epic in Jira?

There are mainly two methods to create an epic in Jira tool.

• Create an Epic from New Issue Tab
• Create an Epic from the Epics Panel Link

1. Create an Epic from New Issue Tab

There are the following steps that are involved to create an epic from the new issue tab i.e. “Create” icon.

Step 1: Click on the “Create” icon on the Jira dashboard.

Step 2: To fill the Project Name, Issue type as Epic, Epic Name, and Summary for Epic.

To fill the Project Name, Issue type

Step 3: Click on “Create” button to create a new epic in Jira.

2. Create an Epic from the Epics Panel Link

There are the following steps involved to create an epic from the Epics Panel Link on the dashboard.

Step 1: Click on the “Backlog” tab on the Jira dashboard.

Step 2: Click on the “EPICS” link on the epics panel.

Step 3: Click on “Create Epic” button by providing the epic name, epic summary and epic type. Then we click on “Create” button.

How to View an Epic in Jira?

We can view all the epics or related issues in Jira by using following ways:

• In Epics Panel Link: First we go to the “Backlog” tab in Jira dashboard and click on the Epics link to view and manage all the epics.
• In list of Epics: The Epics link provides/display the all epics related to your software application development.
• In View Issues in Epic: By clicking on an epic, it shows all the task or issue related to the particular epic with status of it for the entire sprint.

Various Epic Operation in Jira

There are some extra epic operations involved in Jira tool.

1. An operation of adding and removing issues in epic: We can add an issue to the epic by using the new issue tab by selecting the issue type is other than epic and then we will add into epic. We also use the EPICS link for adding an issue to the particular epic. For that we go to the EPICS link and click on the “create issue in epic” tab.

2. Viewing the Summary of an Epic: Here we can check details regarding the particular epic in terms of the project name, sprint name, start date, end date and any subtask related to it. The completion of the sub-task is must for the completion of Epic.

3. Monitoring the Status of an Epic: It helps to monitor the progress of work in terms of tracking incomplete tasks and workflow of the team.

4. Complete your Epic: When all related tasks of the epic will complete then we change the status of this particular epic to in “DONE” state. It indicates that the epic will be completed or ended. For that operation epic which you want to be completed, put status as “DONE”. Then the epic will be completed.

Difference between Epic and Sprints

Epics are almost always delivered over a set of sprints. As a team learns more about an epic through development and customer feedback, user stories will be added and removed as necessary. That’s the key with agile epics: Scope is flexible, based on customer feedback and team cadence.