How can I show the hierarchy within a filter?

[Kim Wright]

I am trying to pull reporting based on the Epic down to the subtask level, and when I create a filter it does not pull the hierarchy set up. Is there a different way to get this data? Thank you!

[Habib__Plugio__]

Hi!

This is a common pain point — JQL filters don't traverse the issue hierarchy, so a filter on an Epic won't automatically include its stories and subtasks. A few options:

1. Plain JQL — you can chain it manually: parent in ("EPIC-123") returns the stories, but reaching subtasks means listing story keys by hand, which doesn't scale.

2. Jira Premium — Since you're on Premium, issue in portfolioChildIssuesOf("EPIC-123") returns the whole subtree, and you can save that as a filter for dashboards.

3. Marketplace apps — full disclosure, I'm the developer of Plugio Suite: its "Work item progress" widget gives you hierarchy-aware reporting without any JQL: each parent gets a progress bar rolled up from its direct children — epics from their stories, and stories from their subtasks — and expanding a row shows the individual child issues with their statuses. You can scope it by project, filter by a specific epic, restrict it to a time window or the active sprint, and combine it with other widgets (pivot tables, charts, counters) on the same dashboard. Here's what it looks like:

Hope one of these fits your setup!

[James Gamble]

Hola Kim,

A Jira filter returns a flat list of matching work items, so it won’t automatically display the Epic > Story or Task > Subtask structure, even when the Parent field is included. JQL controls which items are returned, but it doesn’t provide a hierarchical presentation of those results.

Since you’re on Jira Cloud Premium, the native option is to use Plans. Create a plan from the relevant spaces, boards, or saved filters, then use the hierarchy controls to expand the work from Epic down through standard work items and subtasks. You can also create a saved view with the fields and filters needed for your report. Atlassian’s Plans documentation is here.

Make sure the plan’s work sources include every level you need. If the source filter returns only Epics, Plans won’t automatically add every descendant unless those children are also within the plan’s configured scope.

If you need the result outside Plans, such as in a dashboard gadget, CSV export, or scheduled report, could you clarify the intended output? Native filter results will remain flat, so the available approach depends on whether you need an interactive hierarchy, a downloadable report, or summarized progress by Epic.

Thanks,

James

[Kim Wright]

Thank you so much!

[Walter Buggenhout]

Hi @Kim Wright,

Since you tagged your question as linked to a premium plan, you should be able to expose the hierarchy using Plans.

You are right that a filter (in itself) does not allow you to do anything related to hierarchy. But if you select all the work items you want to see hierarchically in a plan, that tool does the hierarchy magic for you. In there, you can add spaces, boards, filters and/or several of each as data sources to get all the pieces you need together.

Hope this helps! 

[Kim Wright]

It sure does, thank you!