Epics

An Epic is a container for related Time Flow Tasks. Epics group work into larger deliverables, making it easier to track scope, progress, and hours across many Tasks at once. Switch to the Epics view by clicking Epics in the toolbar.

An Epic is a collection of Tasks aimed at a specific goal. The Project "Build Law Library Website" could conceivably be made up of dozens of Epics like "Create Design Document" or "Implement SSO", and each should be concise and encapsulated enough to measure a specific outcome. Read more about it in the Getting the Most Out of Epics guide.

Epics require the Enable Epics setting to be turned on in Organization Settings > Time Flow. It needs Enable Backlog to be on first, and it is only available on the Pro plan. If you do not see the Epics tab, ask your organization owner to enable it.

The Epics Grid

The Epics view is a tree-data grid. Each Epic appears as a parent row that can be expanded to reveal its child Tasks. Summary chips above the grid show the total Epic count and a breakdown by state: backlog, active, and archived.

An expand/collapse-all button in the first column header lets you open or close every Epic at once.

Columns

The grid shares the same column management as the Ledger. These can be toggled on/off through the column management panel by hovering over one of the column headings, clicking on the ellipsis menu and selecting "Manage Columns".

Creating an Epic

Click + Epic in the toolbar (visible only on the Epics tab when you have permission). The dialog title is Create Epic.

Epic Fields

Title — required.
Description — rich-text editor. Images and PDFs can be dropped in once the Epic has been saved.
Colour — click the swatch to open a colour picker. The colour appears on Epic badges, the Ref column, and Chain Bands on the Timeline. Chain Bands are the lightly coloured band that appears on the timeline behind the Epic's tasks. They can be switched on or off with the Chain Bands toggle in the Timeline configuration, which also has a Chain Band Opacity slider.
Priority — None, Low, Medium, High, or Critical.
Lead — assign a lead user from the project's members, or leave as Unassigned.
Budget — a numeric budget amount. Only visible when budget fields are enabled in organization settings.
External Reference — a collapsible section with Source, Ref ID, Name, and URL fields for linking to an external system.

The Epic Page

Click an Epic's reference in the grid (or the View action) to open its dedicated page. The page shows the Epic's title, state, priority, lead, scope (aggregated estimated hours), and a count of child Tasks.

Below the header is a Ledger of the Epic's Tasks with the same columns and actions available on the main Ledger. Navigation arrows let you move between Epics without returning to the grid. If you can manage Epics, Activate, Archive, and Edit buttons appear beside the arrows; Edit opens the Edit Epic dialog. The Back to Epics arrow in the toolbar returns you to the grid.

Adding Tasks to an Epic

From the Epic page, click Add Existing in the toolbar to open the Add Task to Epic dialog. It lists the project's Tasks that are not in an Epic and are not Done or Archived. Select one or more Tasks using the checkboxes and click Add to assign them to the Epic. Click + Task in the same toolbar to create a new Task that is already assigned to this Epic. You can also assign a Task to an Epic from the Task dialog's Epic selector.

Epic Lifecycle

An Epic has three states:

Backlog — the Epic has been created but work has not begun.
Active — work is in progress. Click Activate on a Backlog Epic to move it to Active. All child Tasks in the Backlog state are automatically pushed to To-Do.
Archived — the Epic is complete or no longer needed. Click Archive to archive it. A dialog asks what should happen to the child Tasks:

Remove from epic — the Tasks are detached and remain active.
Archive tasks with epic — the Tasks are archived along with the Epic.

Archived Epics can be restored from the archived tasks view.

Promoting a Task to an Epic

You can promote an existing Task into a new Epic. Open the Task and choose Promote to Epic from its menu. This is available for a Backlog Task that has no time entries and is not already in an Epic. The promotion dialog (titled Promote to Epic) pre-fills the Epic's title and description from the Task. Click Promote. The original Task is deleted and a new Epic is created in its place.

Assigning Tasks to Epics

There are two ways to assign a Task to an Epic:

From the Task dialog, use the Epic selector (in edit mode or the create dialog) to choose an Epic.
From the Epic page, click Add Existing and select Tasks from the list.

To remove a Task from an Epic, set the Epic selector to No Epic in the Task dialog.

Filtering by Epic

When the project has Epics, the filter bar shows an Epic button. Choose All Items, Only Epics (Tasks that belong to any Epic), or a single Epic to show only its Tasks. Epics still in Backlog are marked BL in the list, and archived Epics are not listed.

Epics work best when they represent a single deliverable or outcome. The Work, Overhead and Flow guide discusses how to structure Epics around the four types of work — keeping business projects, internal projects, changes, and unplanned work in separate Epics so that scope and Overhead are always visible.