Am I the only one wondering why Atlassian doesn't support parent and child queries properly?

Question

In Jira server, we had to use plugins like Script Runner to be able to execute queries like:

issueFunction in portfolioChildrenOf("status = Delivering and issueType = Initiative")

But in Cloud, nothing seems to replicate this - other than side-stepping all the built-in Jira reporting and using Structure. Even Script Runner on the cloud doesn't support it because of limitations in the Jira Cloud API.

Am I the only one bemused by this omission? Have any Atlassian product managers come forward to speak on this topic? It renders the Jira hierarchy pointless. In fact, since Script Runner does support linkedIssuesOf we'd be better off not using the parent-child hierarchy in Jira and linking them together with issue links.

Sean Chua _Adaptavist_ · Answer

Well, ScriptRunner for Jira Cloud just posted that they are working on the release for portfolioChildrenOf() within the next few months. So that should be fun :)

portfolioChildrenOf() to get all initiatives across the organization where my team is involved

Sean Blezard · Answer

It feels like Atlassian forces us to consider radical solutions like "de-normalising" the data and automating read-only values for parents or children (depending on the situation). For example, if I want to get all stories with an open sub-bug then I'd have an "open bugs" counter in the story that gets updated with an automation event trigger when a sub-bug is created/closed.

Atlassian has optimised Jira Cloud for read performance, I suppose, given the glaring lack of an option to query like we could with ScriptRunner on Server/Data Centre.