Jira portfolio plans

[Padma_Agarwal]

I am trying to create portfolio plan connecting multiple jira boards using common labels and then doing group by Idea, but i am seeing it is not displaying the epics under all the ideas i know exists and some are just shown as low hanging. What is missing i checked the fields labels and projects still it doesnt give clean portfolio plan

[Ivan Manolov - JXL]

@Padma_Agarwal Arkadiusz is right that the JPD Delivery tab link and the Plans hierarchy parent field are two separate things - and Plans uses the parent field, not the delivery link, to determine where an epic sits in the hierarchy.

Here's the key distinction:

• JPD Delivery tab links an epic to an idea for roadmap tracking purposes within JPD. It does not set the Epic's Parent field.
• Jira Plans hierarchy uses the Parent field on the epic (or the hierarchy level configured in your plan) to determine nesting. If the Epic's parent isn't explicitly set to the Idea, Plans won't nest it there.

To fix it:

1. Open one of the missing epics.
2. Check the Parent field in the issue detail view. If it's empty or pointing to something other than the JPD Idea, that's the issue.
3. Set the Parent field on the epic to the JPD Idea you want it to appear under.
4. In your plan, go to Settings → Hierarchy and confirm that your hierarchy levels include both the Idea level (from JPD) and Epic. If the Idea issue type isn't in your plan's hierarchy configuration, the plan won't know to nest epics under it.
5. Also check your plan scope (Sources): the projects containing the missing epics need to be included in the plan's source filter.

The "low hanging" items are issues Plans can't place in the hierarchy - usually because they have no parent or their parent is out of scope.

Cheers,

Ivan

[Ivan Manolov - JXL]

@Padma_Agarwal following up on my earlier answer - once you get the hierarchy sorted in Plans, you may still find that the "group by label" approach is fragile: labels are free-text and any typo or inconsistency breaks the grouping.

If you end up wanting a more flexible cross-project portfolio view, it's worth knowing that if you're open to solutions from the Atlassian Marketplace, JXL for Jira lets you build multi-project hierarchy views that can group by any field - including labels, components, fix versions, or custom fields - without relying on Plans hierarchy configuration. Each epic and its child stories from different boards show up in the same view, and the grouping is live.

Disclosure: I work for the team that builds JXL.

Cheers,

Ivan

[Padma_Agarwal]

Thanks this is super helpful.

All the parent fields of epics are empty, but still few epics show correctly on portfolio plan . 

[Padma_Agarwal]

Thanks Ivan, I will try JXL too but meanwhile I want to create timeline portfolio plan so i can see progress send status to leaders about completion progress track blockers. Is it still the right place to start?

[Arkadiusz Wroblewski]

Hi @Padma_Agarwal 

Labels alone won't nest your issues. You need to ensure "Idea" is defined above "Epic" in your hierarchy settings and that the Epic’s "Parent"  field actually points to the Idea. Without that specific link, Jira just sees them as unrelated items.

If they are linked but still aren't showing up, check your "plan scope" . Your source filter might be missing the projects or boards where the Epics live. I’d start by checking the Parent field on one missing Epic first, that’s usually where the disconnect is. 

[Padma_Agarwal]

I have linked the epic under delivery section in JPD idea, do i still need to set parent of epic to that JPD?

[Arkadiusz Wroblewski]

@Padma_Agarwal 

No, that's not necessarily the case.

If you're using Jira Product Discovery delivery links, then linking the Epic in the JPD idea's Delivery section is the correct connection for Group by → Idea in Plans.

The Parent field serves a different purpose. It's used for Jira's hierarchy.