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🌟 New Epic Experience - Internal Feedback issue

Welcome to the new epic experience!

The purpose of this feedback issue is to collect feedback from customers and internal team members. Our goals are to identify and prioritize bugs and issues, capture ideas for new features and improvements, and ultimately enhance user satisfaction and product quality. Your input is crucial in helping us understand and address the needs of our users, ensuring that our product continues to evolve and improve.

🎗 How to give feedback

  1. Check existing feedback & known issues: Before submitting, check to see if your feedback is already captured in the known issues section or reported by someone else in this issue. If so, comment on the existing thread or leave an emoji reaction to show support.
  2. Start a new thread: If your feedback is not listed, start a new thread with a descriptive title. Include relevant details, screenshots, and steps to reproduce the issue in expandable sections.
  3. Be Specific: Provide as much detail as possible, including device/browser information, steps to reproduce, and expected vs. actual outcomes.

🤝🏾 What you can expect from us

  1. We will read all of your feedback.
  2. We may not respond to all feedback directly.
  3. We will create issues for repeatable bugs and assign a priority based on severity.

⚠ Known issues, feature gaps and changes in behavior

The new epic experience for general release requires some key gap features and the resolution of known bugs. A comprehensive list of the necessary gap features can be found here, and the identified bugs that need addressing are listed here. Both lists are crucial for the successful deployment of the updated epic experience.

🔙 At any time, you can revert to the legacy epic experience by adding ?force_legacy_view=true to the end of the epic URL. For example, this epic URL on the new experience: https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/9290, can be converted to the legacy experience by using: https://gitlab.com/groups/gitlab-org/-/epics/9290?force_legacy_view=true

🐾 Changes based on feedback

Thank you to everyone who took the time to share feedback on the new epic experience. Your insights have been invaluable in helping us refine the experience, ensuring we deliver a polished and seamless rollout for our customers. Your contributions are critical in shaping the final product, and we're grateful for your commitment to making it the best it can be.

Now, let's look at the current status of the issues raised, including both closed and in-flight items:

Open feedback issues ⌛

 
---
display: table
fields: state, title, milestone, labels("workflow*"), healthStatus, updatedAt
---
project = "gitlab-org/gitlab" and label = "New epic experience feedback" and opened = true

Shipped feedback issues 🚀

 
---
display: table
fields: state, title, milestone, updatedAt
---
project = "gitlab-org/gitlab" and label = "New epic experience feedback"  and opened = false

New epic features

  1. Epic detail page: The new Epic detail page has a fresh look while maintaining the familiarity of the existing design. We've reduced the scrolling burden with a 'read more' feature for long descriptions and reorganized the right sidebar for better usability. This ensures that all essential information is easily accessible, enhancing your overall user experience.
  2. Epic dates: Dates are now managed with a single widget featuring a toggle to choose ‘fixed’ or ‘inherited’ dates, and a start and end date picker, simplifying date management and helping you stay on top of project timelines.
  3. Health Status: Health status is a new feature at the epic level. You can set and update the health status to 'On track,' 'Needs attention,' or 'At risk.' This provides quick insight into the project's progress, helping you communicate and manage potential issues proactively.
  4. Customizable Color Options: Color options have been expanded. You can now choose from a larger set of pre-existing values or add custom RGB or hex value. This helps in categorizing and prioritizing tasks visually. Color is a flexible tool to categorize epics. Use cases include creating associations to squads, company initiatives, or levels in the epic hierarchy. Epic color can be viewed on the Roadmap and Epic Boards.
  5. Parent Epics & Ancestry: The new Parent feature allows you to add a parent directly from the epic, just like adding a parent epic from an issue. Ancestry has been moved to the top in a breadcrumb-like manner, displaying the immediate and ultimate parents. This makes it easier to navigate and understand the hierarchy of your epics.
  6. Time Tracking: Time tracking is now available at the epic level. You can log time spent on different parts of the project, ensuring accurate time management. For instance, if a feature is estimated to take 10 weeks, you can log time for each sprint and monitor progress, helping you stay on schedule and within budget.
  7. View on Roadmap: We've replaced the embedded roadmap tab with a 'View on Roadmap' option in the more actions menu. This takes you to the full roadmap page with all its settings and sorting options, filtered by the selected epic. This change offers a more detailed and customizable view of your project's roadmap.
  8. Linking Different Types of Records: You can now link dependencies between different types of records, such as tasks, issues, and epics. This creates a connected view, enhancing traceability and providing a comprehensive overview of related work items. This helps ensure that all related tasks are managed together, improving overall project coherence.
  9. Webhooks for Epics: Users can automate and streamline their workflows by sending real-time updates from GitLab to their preferred tools and services whenever changes occur in epics, enhancing efficiency and collaboration.
  10. Resolve threads: You can now resolve threads in work item discussions, making it easier to manage and track important conversations. This feature allows you to collapse resolved threads by default, helping you focus on active discussions and streamline your workflow within GitLab's work item interface.
  11. Update relationship types on the fly: You'll now be able to change issue relationships directly from the linked item widget, saving you time and reducing frustration. No more deleting and recreating relationships when you need to update them – simply use the new option to switch between 'relates to', 'blocks', and 'is blocked by' with ease, making your issue management more flexible and efficient.
  12. Convert task list to child items: Quickly convert task lists from the description into individual child issues. This update streamlines the process, letting you fill in details as you go, making child item creation faster and more efficient for your workflow.

New features coming soon!

📖 Reference links

Edited by Amanda Rueda