How to Manage the Tree Structure in RTM

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The tree structure in Requirements and Test Management for Jira is more than just a way to organize data - it’s your central navigation system for complex test and requirement repositories.

A well-maintained structure brings clarity to your project, speeds up your workflow, and ensures nothing gets lost.

How to manage it efficiently? 

1. Organize Requirements from high-level to detailed

A clear hierarchy of requirements helps teams understand both the big picture and the details.

In RTM, you can reflect the relationship between high-level goals and individual functionalities using nested folders.

Recommended folder levels for Requirements:

• Business Requirements - define the overall system or project objectives
• Functional Requirements - describe specific behaviors and use cases
• Non-functional Requirements - outline performance, security, or availability expectations

Tip💡

Use folders to mirror your specification documents or contract scope. This makes it easier to validate coverage and traceability during audits or customer reviews.

2. Organize Test Cases based on application functionality

Well-organized test cases improve both test coverage and reusability. In RTM, folders let you group manual and automated tests by module, feature, or test type.

You can also create dedicated folders for automated test imports or exploratory test sessions, depending on your process.

Tip💡

Start with a simple, functional structure and evolve it with your project. Too many levels early on can slow you down - find the right balance.

3. Manage Test Plans with strategy in mind

Test Plans can quickly become difficult to manage in large projects. Using the tree structure, you can divide them by:

• Test type - Regression, Performance, Exploratory
• Testing level - Unit, Integration, System, Acceptance
• Release version - for example, “Release 1.0” / “Hotfix 1.1.1”

Tip💡

Keep active test plans at the top of the tree for quick access, and move archived or completed ones to a separate folder.

4. Manage your tree over time

Maintaining the tree structure is an ongoing process, not a one-time setup.

Here are some tips that help teams stay organized:

• Use consistent naming conventions - define folder and item naming standards (for example, [REQ] Login, TC-POS-001) to simplify search and filtering
• Limit top-level folders - too many root folders make navigation harder. Start with 3–5 logical categories and expand only when necessary
• Clean up regularly - archive outdated items or move them to Deprecated folders to reduce clutter without losing historical data
• Plan before importing - if you import data (for example, Test Cases from CSV), create your folder structure first. RTM doesn’t currently support auto-folder mapping during import