JIra links relationships and how to create traceability from this

[Anand]

Hello Experts,

I guess this is being asked but I am keen to know how

1 Question. Internally Jira link relationships are handled in a different way Example: Related to, Implemented by, blocked by when to use, and what difference does it make in the implementation.

Example: I links stakeholder Jira epic and then create a few stories linked to it, then forr each story a few functional requirements, design requirements, system requirements are linked 

2 Question. I want to extract the relationships, status traceability from this. 

Can someone share some experience in this?

Thanks in advance

[Pramodh M · Accepted solution]

Hi @Anand 

The relationship between epics, stories, tasks are parent child relationship

The relationship between the linked issues are defined by the links we define (inward and outward)

Here is the community link for reference on the same question

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-Core-Server-questions/What-is-the-advantage-to-using-Epics-vs-Linked-Issues/qaq-p/779583

JQL are available for extracting the relationship between Epic and it's child issues via 

"Epic link" or parentLink 

And linked issues via reference here

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

While epic linking is maintained for defining heirarchy, linked issues are used for relating issues

Let me know if you have any further queries

Thanks,

Pramodh

[Anand]

Hi @Pramodh M  Thank you. If it is not a bother, is it possible to see how reports (advanced roadmaps or reports) look like for each of the relations defined? Is this the same as SQL one to many, many to one, one to one relationships?

[Pramodh M]

@Anand 

Yes it is possible to see on a dashboard, or to have the reports, or as said by @Nic Brough -Adaptavist- on advanced roadmaps

I would not compare it with SQL for relating those relationships, but please find the reference here on how exactly the linking works

https://support.atlassian.com/jira-software-cloud/docs/link-an-issue

Thanks

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

An issue link is simply a marker saying "these two issues are related".  It doesn't matter what the link is called, or what the direction is, Jira has no off-the-shelf functions that do anything with the links other than report on them.

Of course, you can add things that make use of the links, in automations or apps.

>I links stakeholder Jira epic and then create a few stories linked to it

That's a separate concept to issue links.  Epics are a way to group issues (story is a type of issue) together.   It is similar to sub-tasks, in that there is a parent-child relationship.  The functions associated with this are very different to the plain link information.  These relationships show up well in roadmaps and timelines, and for "status traceability", tend to follow a to-do, doing, done status - you can say a parent is started if one or more of its children are in progress or done, and would not say any parent is done untill all of its children are done.

[Anand]

Hi @Nic Brough -Adaptavist-  Thanks a lot. I will create a separate thread to ask a question on how to link my issues in the roadmaps and timelines.  Also is there a standard guidelines to what is the type of relationship to use when linking two issues. (Stories, Tasks, subtasks etc)

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Yep, the standards are not complex:

• A story is something your people ask for, and your developers work to deliver (within a sprint if you're working in a Scrum way)
• An Epic is an over-arching thing that contains many issues, across many projects, and represents a longer-term goal.
• A sub-task is a fragment of a story
• You link issues together (at any level), when there is a good reason for someone to need to know that there is some logical relationship between two issues

TLDR:

Work with a sensible hierarchy, and link issues when it's useful to tell people other issues might be involved.