In January 2024, Atlassian rolled out a new strategy for issue and Epic use in Jira Cloud. The Epic link and Parent link fields on the issue view screen were replaced by a single Parent field. This strengthened the relationship between Epics and their issues and introduced new ways to search and manage associations.
For example, a user can add or change a parent Epic association in an issue’s breadcrumbs. Simply hover over the breadcrumb area and click the pencil icon as shown.
The original Epic link field (still used in Server and Data Center) doesn’t support sub-tasks, but the new Parent field does! Simply add the field to your sub-task screens to easily associate child issues with other hierarchy levels.
Epics can organize work for a single initiative or encompass work for multiple teams, sprints, and releases.
Check out my article on Salto’s website to for a non-tech usage example to help demonstrate the value of Epics in a Jira project.
Read: How to Create an Epic in Jira
Learn how to create, manage, and utilize Epics effectively.