How to get a list of all Program Epics under an Initiative using JQL?

[Grant Mackay]

I am trying to create a list of all Program Epics under an Initiative using JQL in Search, but have not been able to so far. Under the Issue Links section of the Initiative, there are ~50 entries for "is the initiative of", which is what I want to display.

I have tried using issuekey in childIssuesOf("INIT"), where INIT is the Initiative ID. However, this does not work since the Program Epics are not child issues of this Initiative (the Initiative has no child issues currently).

I've also tried type = "Program Epic" AND "Parent Link" = INIT, but this does not generate any results.

Using type = "Program Epic" AND issueLinkType in ("has the initiative") generates a larger list that includes the Program Epics I want, but from there I do not know how to narrow it down further to only include Program Epics of the specific Initiative.

Any suggestions on how to get the desired search results?

[Bill Sheboy · Accepted solution]

Hi @Grant Mackay -- Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

Is "Program Epic" an issue type you have created, or do you mean "Epic"?

Do you want this information for a specific Initiative?  If so, please try this:

parent = INIT-1234

Where INIT-1234 is the key of your initiative.

Kind regards,
Bill

[Grant Mackay]

Thank you @Bill Sheboy for your suggestion, unfortunately that gave no results.

My organization has an issue types of "Program Epic" and "Epic", so Program Epic must be a custom issue type. Program Epic is a level higher than Epic, as Program Epic can have multiple Epics underneath it.

Thanks,

Grant

[Bill Sheboy]

Are you using Jira Standard or Premium license, and how have you associated these issue types?

For Premium, other levels can be added to the hierarchy, and so the Parent field works.

But if you have Standard, and have added issue types at the same levels as Epics, I expect you are connecting issues using links instead.

[Grant Mackay]

I believe it is Premium, but I do not have any administrator access rights or similar so not 100% sure how to check that. Apologies, I am fairly new to Jira.

They are connected through the Link option. I did not make the connections myself, but it seems to be done this way from the Program Epic:

1. Click More > Link
2. On Jira Issue tab, select "Has the initiative of" in 'This issue' field
3. In the 'Issue' field, enter the Initiative ID (e.g. INIT-1234)

[Bill Sheboy]

Thanks for that information.

Perhaps try using the JQL function linkedIssues() as described below.  With this you can specific the initiative, and optionally also the specific link type.

https://support.atlassian.com/jira-software-cloud/docs/advanced-search-reference-jql-functions/#Advancedsearchingfunctionsreference-linkedIssueslinkedIssues--

[Grant Mackay]

That worked, thank you @Bill Sheboy! Here is what I used:

issue in linkedIssues("INIT-1234") AND issuetype = "Program Epic"