Backbone syncing

Understand how you can sync your Avion backbone to epics and other elements in your backlog tool.

As a reminder, the backbone is a collective term for your journeys and steps. Some of our integrations allow you to sync the backbone, or certain parts of it to elements in your backlog tool.

Not all integrations support backbone syncing and those that do, have specific options to understand. Here is a table to outline the options available.

Tool	Options	Notes
Jira Cloud / Data Center	Journeys → Epics — OR — Steps → Epics — OR — Journeys → Custom Fields — OR — Steps → Custom Fields	It's also possible to map one layer to epics, and the other to custom fields. Example: Journeys → Epics, Steps → Custom Fields. All setups are optional and you can skip backbone syncing if desired.
Azure DevOps	Journeys → Epics — AND — Steps → Features	This is optional and you can skip backbone syncing if desired.
Trello	Journeys & Steps → Custom Fields	This is optional and you can skip backbone syncing if desired. Be aware that if you choose to sync the backbone, you are also opting in to sync story sizes to a custom field.
GitHub & ZenHub	N/A	Backbone syncing is not supported.

There are pros and cons to syncing the backbone.

Pros

• Track the user experience all the way through to delivery

• Allow developers to see the greater product context at all times

• Ensure structural consistency between Avion and your backlog tool

Cons

• A true experience-led approach doesn't always map well to "epics" or "features" in other tools

• Most backlog tools allow elements to become "complete". This goes against the Avion backbone ethos

• Syncing the backbone closes the opportunity to use epics in other tools for better suited groupings — for instance using epics as a technical grouping of stories