Epic Boards (PREMIUM)

• Introduced in GitLab 13.10.
• Deployed behind a feature flag, disabled by default.
• Enabled by default in GitLab 14.0.
• Enabled on GitLab.com.
• Recommended for production use.
• For GitLab self-managed instances, GitLab administrators can opt to disable it.

Epic boards build on the existing epic tracking functionality and labels. Your epics appear as cards in vertical lists, organized by their assigned labels.

To view an epic board, in a group, select Epics > Boards.

Create an epic board

Prerequisites:

• You must have at least the Reporter role for a group.

To create a new epic board:

1. Go to your group and select Epics > Boards.
2. In the upper left corner, select the dropdown with the current board name.
3. Select Create new board.
4. Enter the new board's title.
5. Optional. To hide the Open or Closed lists, clear the Show the Open list and Show the Closed list checkboxes.
6. Optional. Set board scope:
   1. Next to Scope, select Expand.
   2. Next to Labels, select Edit and select the labels to use as board scope.
7. Select Create board.

Now you can add some lists. To change these options later, edit the board.

Delete an epic board

Introduced in GitLab 14.0.

Prerequisites:

• You must have at least the Reporter role for a group.
• A minimum of two boards present in a group.

To delete the active epic board:

1. Select the dropdown with the current board name in the upper left corner of the Epic Boards page.
2. Select Delete board.
3. Select Delete.

Actions you can take on an epic board

• Create a new list.
• Remove an existing list.
• Filter epics.
• Create workflows, like when using issue boards.
• Move epics and lists.
• Change epic labels (by dragging an epic between lists).
• Close an epic (by dragging it to the Closed list).
• Edit the scope of a board.

Create a new list

Prerequisites:

• You must have at least the Reporter role for a group.

To create a new list:

1. Go to your group and select Epics > Boards.
2. In the upper-right corner, select Create list.
3. In the New list column expand the Select a label dropdown and select the label to use as list scope.
4. Select Add to board.

Remove a list

Removing a list doesn't have any effect on epics and labels, as it's just the list view that's removed. You can always create it again later if you need.

Prerequisites:

• You must have at least the Reporter role for a group.

To remove a list from an epic board:

1. On the top of the list you want to remove, select the List settings icon ({settings}). The list settings sidebar opens on the right.
2. Select Remove list. A confirmation dialog appears.
3. Select OK.

Create an epic from an epic board

Introduced in GitLab 14.0.

Prerequisites:

• You must have at least the Reporter role for a group.
• You must have created a list first.

To create an epic from a list in epic board:

1. On the top of a list, select the New epic ({plus}) icon.
2. Enter the new epic's title.
3. Select Create epic.

Filter epics

Introduced in GitLab 14.0.

Use the filters on top of your epic board to show only the results you want. It's similar to the filtering used in the epic list, as the metadata from the epics and labels is re-used in the epic board.

You can filter by the following:

• Author
• Label

Move epics and lists

Introduced in GitLab 14.0.

You can move epics and lists by dragging them.

Prerequisites:

• You must have at least the Reporter role for a group.

To move an epic, select the epic card and drag it to another position in its current list or into another list. Learn about possible effects in Dragging epics between lists.

To move a list, select its top bar, and drag it horizontally. You can't move the Open and Closed lists, but you can hide them when editing an epic board.

Dragging epics between lists

When you drag epics between lists, the result is different depending on the source list and the target list.

	To Open	To Closed	To label B list
From Open	-	Close epic	Add label B
From Closed	Reopen epic	-	Reopen epic and add label B
From label A list	Remove label A	Close epic	Remove label A and add label B

Edit the scope of an epic board

Prerequisites:

• You must have at least the Reporter role for a group.

To edit the scope of an epic board:

1. In the upper-right corner, select Edit board.
2. Optional:
   • Edit the board's title.
   • Show or hide the Open and Closed columns.
   • Select other labels as the board's scope.
3. Select Save changes.

Enable or disable epic boards

Epic boards are under development but ready for production use. It is deployed behind a feature flag that is enabled by default. GitLab administrators with access to the GitLab Rails console can disable it.

To disable it:

Feature.disable(:epic_boards)

To enable it:

Feature.enable(:epic_boards)