Using a Parent field from a project different than the one you are creating issue in

[Aileen]

Hello all,

Does anyone know if there are any cons to using a parent field from a project other than the one you creating the issue in?

For example, if I am creating issue in Project A, but I attach a parent issue from Project B,

are there any repercussions from doing so?

I'm just trying to find best practices around usage of the parent field

[Trudy Claspill · Accepted solution]

Hello @Aileen 

Doing exactly that is not an uncommon practice. I have seen organization manage cross-team Epics (and higher level issues like Themes and Initiatives) in one project while having the individual teams manage their stories/tasks and subtasks in their own projects.

Doing so, though, may make your management of agile boards a bit more challenging. If you want the parent issues to be displayed in the same board as the child issues then you have to adjust the board filter to encompass that. The next challenge is in getting only the items you actually want from the parent issue's project rather than everything from that project.

Do note that one parent/child pairing absolutely has to stay within a project, and that is the pairing of Subtask type issues to a parent.

[Aileen]

Thank you! 

Yes, I do recall that if timeline is open, but the parent is on another project, the stories won't have anything to roll up into on the timeline (since the Epic doesn't exist on that project).

Hmm...

I think some of my colleagues are trying to do a program management where the business-project has the Epic, but the software-projects have the Stories (for development work), etc. 

Not sure if that's the best option for visibility though

Although the benefit is that the program manager would have their own jira-business-project to monitor and manage.

[Trudy Claspill]

Regarding the timeline, since you are on the Premium subscription (according to your tags) you could use an advanced roadmap Plan based on saved filters to show the timeline and include issues from different projects.

But you are correct that the basic Timeline available with the agile board is limited to only the issues in the current project.

For the project manager, if they created Epics in a Business project then the board that they would see in that project would not show any of the child issues from the software projects. They would also need to use an advanced roadmap Plan if they wanted to see all the related information.