Filter query to search for Epics that are linked to certain Program Epics

Question

Hello all,

I have a list of Program Epics and I need to find out which Epics do not have a linkage ("is a child of" linkage) to any of those Program Epics. My company only allows native JQL.

So basically it should look something like this:

issuetype = Epic AND linkedIssuesOf in (ProgramEpic1, ProgramEpic2, ...)

The linkedIssuesOf field does not work, does anyone know how I can search for that with native JQL?

BR

Dick · Answer

As @Humashankar VJ indicates: tag the issue once:

* its parent link is set to an issue of type ProgramEpic

But you need to give your users a complete solution, so deal with:

* moving an epic between ProgramEpics (nothing should happen!)
* removing an epic from a ProgramEpic (label should be cleared)

You might also want to run an initial script that tackles labelling the epics already attached to a programepic.

All in all, you would be quite busy testing this, but once it works, people will adore you :)

Happy automating

Dick

Dick · Answer

Hi @Andreas Stoffel, Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

Sometimes, a problem is best approached from a different angle. You can turn your question around by tagging issues that have a parent link to your known ProgramEpics.

'parent link' in  (ProgramEpic1, ProgramEpic2, ...)

Hope this finds you all your important children-epics,

Dick

By voting for helpful posts and marking answers to your question, you're helping people with similar questions find a solution more quickly. Sharing is caring applies to knowledge as well :)

Humashankar VJ · Answer

Hi @Andreas Stoffel

Jira's native JQL doesn't support querying issue links like "is child of" without third-party add-ons like ScriptRunner.

You can use custom fields or labels as a workaround to identify Program Epics and their linked Epics. To do this, start by tagging child Epics with a specific label, such as "ChildOfProgramEpic", if they aren't already tagged.

Then, use the following JQL query to find Epics not linked to Program Epics: "issuetype = Epic AND labels != ChildOfProgramEpic".

This query will return a list of Epics without the label indicating a link to a Program Epic

Hope this helps - Happy to help further!!
Thank you very much and have a great one!
Warm regards