Structure Expr Formula - How to get a parent epic's issuelinks?

Question

Hi, I have a structure of issues. I'd like to create a column, where I show some information about the issue's epic, without having the epic itself in the structure. Specifically, I want the issue's epic's issueLinks displayed in a column. I tried creating a formula column of "epic.issueLinks" to no avail.

Stepan Kholodov · Answer

Hello @Hedley Francis

It is only possible to extract data from a directly related issue if it's not added to the structure. I.e. you can show data of a parent issue if its sub-issue is added to a structure(and vice versa), or the data of a grandparent if the parent is added to the structure. Structure's Formula column can't reach to issues through other issues that are not present in a structure.

Alternatively, if Stories are linked with Epics through any standard link(and not the Epic link), then you can add parents and grandparents under each Story instead of above them, keeping both Stories and their board-based order at the top-level of the structure. And once all issues are in the structure, you can show different values at the Stories' level, if needed.

If you need further assistance with this, please reach out to us at our support portal at: https://tempo-io.atlassian.net/servicedesk/customer/portal/6/group/1051

Best regards,
Stepan Kholodov
Tempo

Hedley Francis · Answer

I have a similar issue, which hopefully explains why the OP wants data but not the epics in the structure!

I want to have a structure which shows all the stories in the backlog, in backlog order (which I've got).  And in one of the columns next to each story I want to show the key and summary of the great-grandparent (in my case that's an increment in the chain story->epic->requirement->increment).

If I extend the structure to include the epic (and requirements and increments) then as far as I can tell, all the stories will end up grouped under those parents, which destroys the order of the stories, but the whole point is that I want to see the stories in story ranked order).

So I want to see:

story1   incrementZ
story2  incrementC
story3  incrementB
story4  incrementZ
story5  incrementA

NOT:

incrementA
      story5
incrementB
     story3
incrementC
     story2
incrementZ
     story1
     story4

Now I can get it to show the Epic Link in one column, but I want it to take the key from that and produce another column with the epic's parent. And another column with the great-grandparent. I don't actually mind if I don't have the intermediate columns, but I thought that might be easier to do!

Stepan Kholodov _ALM Works_ · Answer

Hello @John Booker

This is not possible to do. You can show a parent Epic's fields' data using the access() function without adding the Epic to the structure, but linked issues can only be shown for issues that are present in the structure.

I hope this helps. If you need our assistance with anything else, please contact us directly at support.almworks.com

Best regards,
Stepan Kholodov
ALM Works