The relationship between an Epic and a Feature is the backbone of strategic alignment. Today, I’m going to walk you through the process of adding a Feature to an Epic in Azure DevOps, ensuring your project hierarchy is as clean as a fresh Slack workspace.
How To Add Feature To Epic In Azure DevOps
By adding a Feature to an Epic, you are “parenting” the work. This allows the Epic to aggregate the progress of all its underlying Features, giving leadership a real-time view of completion percentages.
Method 1: Using the Mapping Pane
- Sign in to your Azure DevOps organization (e.g.,
dev.azure.com/YourOrg). - Select your Project from the dashboard.
- On the left-hand sidebar, navigate to Boards > Backlogs. Check out the screenshot below for your reference.
Ensuring the Correct View
By default, your backlog might be showing “Stories” or “Tasks.” To work with Epics and Features, you must adjust your view:
- In the upper right-hand corner of the Backlog screen, look for the Backlog level selector.
- Select Features. This will display all the high-level initiatives currently in your roadmap.
Step 2: Enabling the Mapping Pane (The “Pro” Way)
If you have an existing Epic and you want to add a Feature to it, the most efficient way—and the one I recommend —is using the Mapping Pane.
- While in the Backlogs view, click on the View Options (gear icon or toggle) in the top right.
- Turn the Mapping toggle to On.
- A pane will appear on the right side of your screen showing your Epics. Check out the screenshot below for your reference.
4. Now, using your left mouse click, drag the respective feature from the main backlog list and drop it onto the target epic in the mapping pane.
