Linking issues to parent issues

[Joseph Hejna]

I was looking into the issue linking functionality and I have a few questions. I need to be able to link multiple issues to a single parent issue. I can't use the sub-task functionality because sub-tasks have different issue types than standard issues do and they dont have all the same fields as standard issues do. In the description of linking issues, it seems as though you can only link issues one-to-one and they are strictly linked-one is not designated as a parent to the other. Is there anything I can do?

[Randall Robertson · Accepted solution]

I can't use the sub-task functionality because sub-tasks have different issue types than standard issues do and they dont have all the same fields as standard issues do.

You mentioned that you can't use sub-tasks for this, but you can. You can create new sub-task issue types that have all of the fields you need. This way you can use the sub-task feature and not have to worry about issue linking.

Depending on how many issue types you need, this might be a lot of work, but if you only need a few sub-task issue types, this may be easier to maintain. Plus, if you use subtasks instead of linked issues, you can use conditions in your workflows that will control what happens to the parent issue based on the status of the sub-tasks - for example, you can prevent the parent issue from being resolved or closed until all sub-tasks are closed.

[Jobin Kuruvilla [Adaptavist]]

it seems as though you can only link issues one-to-one and they are strictly linked-one is not designated as a parent to the other.

Not true. You can link as many issues as you want to another issue. But if you create a link type as parent, people might as well add more parents to one issue because there is no way to limit it. If you use it correctly, that might work.

[Jobin Kuruvilla [Adaptavist]]

Yes to all :)

[Joseph Hejna]

So when I create an issue, and I attempt to link it to another issue, I will have the option to assign one as the parent? and similarly, I can continue to create new issues and link them to that same parent issue? Do I have to make a custom link type called Parent?

[Joseph Hejna]

Awesome! thank you.

[Randall Robertson]

@Joseph,

@Jobin makes a good point, but there are two things to remember when creating link types and linking multiple issues:

1. JIRA uses different terminology for links. In the Issue Links administration page, you will see "Incoming Description" and "Outgoing Description" listed for each type of issue link you have in your JIRA instance. Incoming could be used to mean Child and Outgoing could be used to mean Parent, but you have to describe the link clearly
2. When you link issues you can link them in either direction. So, you could choose to link issue A to issue B using the Outgoing description for issue A or by using the Incoming Description for issue A. So, you have to make your descriptions very clear or you may end up with circular links between issues because users link them in the reverse order from what you intended.

[Brian Bishop]

Can I link a single issue to multiple other issues?

[Joe Pursel]

Yes, you can link a single issue to multiple other issues.

[Joseph Hejna]

So when I create an issue, and I attempt to link it to another issue, I will have the option to assign one as the parent? and similarly, I can continue to create new issues and link them to that same parent issue?

[Joe Pursel]

Yes, that is correct.