📣 Feature update: Hierarchies in Jira Product Discovery

[#1]

If you're already familiar with the feature, as of 9 December it's generally available. See what's new here.

This feature is part of the Jira Product Discovery Premium plan.

👉 Start your trial here 👈

Other features of the plan are described here and here's an implementation guide.

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In the Free and Standard plans, Jira Product Discovery only supports a flat model, where every idea is at the same level. As part of the Premium plan of Jira Product Discovery we’ve introduced a feature that lets you create custom product hierarchies - for example this view that shows Opportunities, Solutions and Experiments and how they ladder up:

And this is a view we use in the JPD space where the JPD team manages the JPD roadmap 🙂

The following demo walks you through use cases, how it works and how to set it up in your space:

Here's an shorter version so you can grasp the concept in 2 minutes.

How it works

In Jira Product Discovery you have spaces, spaces have ideas, ideas have fields, fields have values, and you can create views that help you visualize ideas based on field values. This system works with different types of fields: select, multi-select, rating, votes, etc.

Here we have introduced two new concepts so you can create hierarchies:

• Custom Types - so you can have different types of objects in your discovery spaces - e.g. Opportunity, Solution, Experiment - instead of just Ideas.

• A new type of field: Connection - which lets you connect ideas of different types. The easiest way to think about this: ideas can be field values for other ideas. For example an Opportunity called “An opportunity” can have the field value “A solution” for its field “Solution”.

• Integration of these fields into JPD views: you can use Connections fields as you would any other field in JPD to create custom views. For example in a list view:

Or in a board view:

Under the hood connections between ideas are stored as Jira issue links. It’s still a flat model, where all ideas are at the same level in a graph, but you can use views to visualize them in a hierarchy:

When you connect ideas via a connection field, this connection will show on both ideas - it’s bi-directional:

Connection fields behave a bit differently to other JPD field types (select, multi-select, etc.) in that they don’t really store any value - the connections between ideas are stored as Jira issue links.

How to set it up

Create types and connection fields

You need to create one type and one connection field for each type. For example if you have 2 types, Opportunity and Solution, the steps are:

1. Create a Type “Opportunity”

2. Create a Connection field “Opportunity” pointing to that Type

3. Create a Type “Solution”

4. Create a Connection field “Solution” pointing to that Type

Here’s a demo for how to do that.

Here are a few things you should be aware of:

• Make sure you create one Connection field for each type - otherwise if you connect 2 ideas the connection will only show on one of them, not both. There’s no point creating more than one Connection field for each Type - because it stores connections as Jira issue links, if you connect ideas via one Connection field, it will also show in any other field pointing to the same Type

• Pro-tip: You can create connection fields as Global or Space fields, depending on your overall set up. It’s OK if you don’t get it right from the first go: you can create a Global field, add it to the space, and delete the space field - and ideas will still be connected as before.

Configure views

You can then set up a view to show up to 3 levels of ideas, e.g. Opportunity/Solution/Experiment:

To do so:

• Create a filter to only show ideas of a specific Type (Solution) - this “focuses” the view on Solutions

• Group by a Connection field (Opportunity) - it shows Opportunities as “Parents” of Solutions

• Add a Connection field to the view (Experiments) - it shows Experiments as “Children” of Solutions

Watch this demo for how to reproduce this view.

Understanding filtering

You can filter ideas at 3 levels:

• Ideas you are grouping by (e.g. Opportunity): you can select which ideas to show as groups, the same way you would when grouping by any other field type

  • Note: as of 9 December 2025 you can also define a filter in the group by menu, to filter connections used to group based on field values.

• Ideas that are shown on the view (e.g. Solution)

• Ideas that show in a connection field (e.g. Experiments) - you can filter them using field values (like for ideas on the view) or by matching field values for groups and columns: see this 3min demo video to understand how that works

Set up automation rules

If you want to use Connection fields in Automation rules and/or JQL, just remember that connection fields don’t really store any value - the connections between ideas are stored as Jira issue links.

Here’s a demo of an automation rule with connection fields.

Connect ideas from different spaces

You can connect ideas from different Discovery spaces. Let’s take the example of a set up where you have:

• A Discovery space that has opportunities at the company-level

• 2 Discovery spaces, one for each team, that have solutions

• And you want solutions that teams work on to be connected to company-level opportunities

You can achieve this with connection fields:

In this sample view in the company space, you can see how opportunities connect to solutions from the two separate team spaces:

Here’s a demo for to replicate this set up:

Using Connection fields in Roadmaps

You can use Connection fields in Roadmaps as long as you create them as Global fields.

Jira Product Discovery was built on Jira team-managed spaces, which means that we don’t yet support Global Types. This means that if you want to use a Type called “Solution” in 2 different spaces you’ll need to create that Type in both spaces. But then you can point the Global Connection field to both these Types as long as they have the exact same name.

You can use these global fields in Spaces and in Roadmaps. The best way to understand when and how to do that is to watch this 4min demo:

FAQ

Can I use this in the timeline view? 

See this post

How do I show a field for each connection on a board card?

See this Loom

Current limitations

Here are current limitations and what we're doing about them:

• Now
  • You'll soon be able to connect ideas of the same type
  • If you use a global connection field, you can only connect it to up to 20 spaces. We're working on increasing that.
• Next 
  • Product hierarchies are not yet integrated with Jira Plans. 
  • We started exploring how to integrate this into the timeline view better
  • You cannot yet "roll up" field values to connections unless you do this via an automation rule (e.g. roll up "impact" from "children" to the "parent" idea) but we've started exploring that.
• Later
  • We are going to look at improving the list view to add a second level of group by so you can show 3 levels of ideas in a tree there - but that's not there yet
  • Connections are not inherited: e.g. if you connect A to B, and B to C, it doesn't connect A to C. But you can do that via an automation rule with a bit of fiddling.

What’s next?

We plan to keep improving this feature over the next few months. And we plan to introduce a new view type: the tree view.

[Antoni Abella Vendrell]

Amazing work, specially with the level of finishing to iron out frictions (e.g., bulk change of types)! A pragmatic question, do you guys end up not using the vanilla "idea" type any longer? 

[Bill Sheboy]

Hi @Tanguy Crusson 

Congrats to you and the team on releasing this feature!  And, thank you for pre-emptively including automation examples to support using the new linkages / connections.

A couple of FYIs after watching your automation video:

• The issue linked trigger fires for the "source" issue, relative to the link-direction for the type.  That may not be the one viewed when a link is added, so please review the link-directions when (particularly if someone decides to create a different rule to form a connection rather than using the UX).
• In the video, you used the built-in feature to find a field and identify the custom field ID for the JSON.  That approach will not work when there are multiple fields with the same name or the field is not currently visible to the hard-coded documentation feature.  The workaround for that is to call the REST API issue get endpoint to find the custom field ID, such as described in this how-to article.

Kind regards,
Bill

[Tanguy Crusson]

Thank you @Bill Sheboy ! I'm definitely not an expert at using Automation rules 🙂 If you'd like to participate to the JPD FAQ (Premium or other) let us know! We can put your Q&A there and make sure to mention your name there.

[Tanguy Crusson]

@Antoni Abella Vendrell We still do, for net new things we add to our project that we don't yet know quite what to do with yet - a new trend in user feedback, an idea we think is worth tracking.

[Stefanie Ramsay]

Hello, thank you for this exciting update! I am having trouble adding new values to my "Company Goal" global field. I have entered 10 already. Is there a limit to how many we can enter?

Edit: I was able to create more using the Create button, I was previously entering through the Connections tab - nevermind!

[Amin Fadul]

Amazing work!, Now we are talking 🔥
Are there any plans to integrate this with Goals?

[Tanguy Crusson]

Thanks @Amin Fadul ! It's already integrated with Goals. You can use Goals by adding the "Goals" field to a view and using it exactly as you would a connection field. We're currently making changes so the ideas you connect to goals also show on the goal itself in the Home experience, not only in Jira Product Discovery

[Tanguy Crusson]

@Amin Fadul here's an example of what it looks like: 

[Stefanie Ramsay]

Hi @Tanguy Crusson , I'm curious how you get the view that you have above and in the Loom recording with the solutions embedded on a card organized by Opportunity. I am trying to recreate it but not sure what I'm missing! 

[Tanguy Crusson]

@Stefanie Ramsay 👋 watch this part of the Loom (from 6:04), I show you how to replicate this there. Basically you just need to add the field "Experiment" (or whatever else you use one level below) to the view

[Alexander Bechte]

Hey all, 

I would like to try out Hierarchy in our product org! Is it possible to enter the Beta Test group? 

[Tanguy Crusson]

@Alexander Bechte you can try it by signing up to a trial for the Premium plan: https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira/product-discovery/premium

[Alexander Bechte]

Is it also possible to try it out within an existing plan which is currently on Standard? The link only allows me to trial with a new subscription. 

[Tanguy Crusson]

@Alexander Bechte to start a Premium trial on your existing company site you need to be a site administrator

[Stefanie Ramsay]

Thank you @Tanguy Crusson - I am able to create different issue types and connect them, but am still not seeing a way to create the display you have where Experiments gets connected to the Solution. I would like to show the Idea as a title under the Workstream card (so "IQAPI enhancements" would have a line drawn to the Reduce affiliate response time. Here's what I am seeing:

I'm curious what I should do differently?

[Antoni Abella Vendrell]

@Stefanie Ramsay , I've been using it for a while, you just need to add the "connection" field you want to show in the card in the list of "Fields" for the view.

It seems that you are filtering by "Company Goal", grouping by "Now/Next/Later", now you should just add in the Fields view the "idea" connection field. @Tanguy Crusson shows it quickly on his explanation video above, maybe worth going over it slowly as it's easy to miss.

P.s. I'm assuming that you created a connection field named "Idea" that connects to idea type "idea"

[Antoni Abella Vendrell]

@Tanguy Crusson , the feature "filter in the connection field" is great. I think I understand how it works, but took a while to sink in. I think that it's because filter shows/hides row/cards, and this feature shows/hides values within the row/card. Did I get it right? Do other user have the same challenge or just get it? 

[Antoni Abella Vendrell]

@Tanguy Crusson , small bug in list view,

Steps:

1. filter by solutions and group by opportunities
2. merge 2 solutions that belong to the same opportunity into a single one

Actual results: the 2 solutions still show in the opportunity, but both have the same name

Expected results: only 1 solution remains

Workaround: re-connect the solutions (remove them from the opportunity and add the merged one back)

[Tanguy Crusson]

@Antoni Abella Vendrell 

> the feature "filter in the connection field" is great. I think I understand how it works, but took a while to sink in. I think that it's because filter shows/hides row/cards, and this feature shows/hides values within the row/card. Did I get it right? Do other user have the same challenge or just get it? 

Yes, this feature is sooooo cryptic, honestly well done understanding it 😅 it's what it does. 

we're currently reviewing this part of the experience 🙂

Thanks for the bug report! We're on it. Does it still happen if you refresh your screen?

[Antoni Abella Vendrell]

:) 

Yeah, without disconnecting/reconnecting the merged dups, refreshing still shows the 2 rows with the same merged idea. The dups act like a single idea though (selecting one selects both), so it might be a FE issue. 

[Stefanie Ramsay]

@Tanguy Crusson @Antoni Abella Vendrell I am also seeing the duplicate bug!

[Matti Desmet]

Awesome work with the hierarchies @Tanguy Crusson and team! Once it's set up, it is super easy to use and really helps bringing structure in our ideas. Its big step up from the previous workarounds! 👏

We have set it up as shown in the screenshots above (goals > opportunities > solutions). However, we have quite some opportunities, in which case the board view is not so clear. I believe the "second level grouping" mentioned on the list of current limitations would make it way easier to navigate. 

Secondly, to help with prioritising opportunities, having formula or data roll-ups solutions to opportunities would also be really useful!

[Stefanie Ramsay]

Hi @Tanguy Crusson

Thanks for all of your help! I'm running into another question. I want to create a list view grouped by Workstream that shows the connected Ideas underneath. This is working for some Ideas, but not others. For ex: the idea "passive offers on Mobile". It is connected to the workstream "Launch Passive Offers on mobile", but it does not appear underneath the workstream when grouped in the list view.

@Antoni Abella Vendrell copying you as well in case you have run into this!

While I'm here, I'm also wondering why there is a grouping of "no value" for workstream, even though all workstreams have a value?

[Olivier GIRAULT]

Hello JPD !

Great job on the hierarchies !

Do you know when the publication of views will be possible with 'a grouping by connection' ? it's super convenient to share ideas with sub-ideas in a chronology :-)

Thank you !

[Tanguy Crusson]

Thanks for the feedback @Matti Desmet 

@Olivier GIRAULT we're currently working on it, I don't have a date but it's coming soon.

@Stefanie Ramsay I think you should try the following:

• Filter for "Type = ideas"
• Group by "Workstream"

This will show you Ideas grouped by Workstream