Within JIRA Portfolio Epics can be associated with an Initiative.

You can also create JIRA issues linked to the Initiatives within Portfolio.

The Epics in Portfolio can also be associated with JIRA issues of type Epic.

When you link a JIRA issue with an Initiative this should create a link between the Issue and the Epic JIRA issues which implement that Initiative.

For example

• Initiative = Mars Mission (JIRA issue SPACE-100) – is implemented by
  • Epic = Space Craft Build (JIRA issue SPACE-200)
  • Epic = Catering (JIRA issue SPACE-250)

If you open up issue SPACE-100 you would see an issue link pointing at SPACE-200 and SPACE-250 and the corresponding counter-links would appear on those issues as well.

This will increase the traceability and visibility of the Initiatives and also allow JQL queries to be constructed which can then be used in regular JIRA issue navigator based reporting. For example – something like:

issuetype = Initiative AND summary = "Mars Mission" AND status NOT IN (Resolved, Closed) AND NOT (issueFunction IN linkedIssuesOf("status != Closed", "implements")

Would show you all of the outstanding Epics required to implement the Mars Mission initiative.