How to filter issues from Epics with certain status?

Question

Basically i want to build a filter for a board to show there only issues from Epics with "in progress" status. I found in JQL "Epic status" parameter, but it doesnt seem work or i use it wrong. Adding it to filter query results in empty task list. How i could implement such filter?

Charlotte Santos -Appfire- · Answer

Hi @YZ

I’m Charlotte, a support engineer at Appfire and I’m here to help you.

Unfortunately, natively, you’ll not be able to do it dynamically.

In the app where my team works, JQL Search Extensions for Jira, you can use the following query to get the children of epics in the in progress status:

issue in childrenOfEpicsInQuery("status = 'In Progress'")

Please contact our support if you have any other questions about this query, or the app in general.

We’ll be happy to help you! 😉

Trudy P Claspill · Answer

Adding to this...

Use of the "Epic Status" field is being deprecated. Use the "Status" field when trying to filter for Epics based on their Status.

Additionally, you can select children of an Epic thus:

Parent = Epic's issue key

Or children of several Epics thus:

Parent in (comma separated list of Epic issue keys)

However what you want is

Parent in (filter that selects Epics)

And that is not supported natively in Jira. Doing something like that would require a third party app like the one @Mykenna Cepek mentioned.

Mykenna Cepek · Answer

Every work item (issue) in Jira has a Status field, which can be any of the values in the Workflow for that work item type.

Epics have that Status field, and they also have another field called "Epic Status" which can only be "To Do", "In Progress" or "Done". There's some historical reason for this, but I've never fully understood it.

So to solve your question, we first need to understand which field you want to pay attention to in order to determine if an Epic is in progress. You have two choices for the fields available in the Epic:

* Epic Status = "In Progress"
* Status = an in-progress status (i.e. StatusCategory="In Progress")

Every Status value in Jira can be categorized into one of three StatusCategories: "To Do", "In Progress", and "Done". You've likely seen this represented as a status color (grey, blue or green, respectively).

Note that the "Epic Status" and "Status" fields in Epics are completely unrelated to each other. Unless you've got some automation, or workflow post-functions, or other scripting running to keep them in sync. they only change when you manually change them. So you might have an Epic with "Status"=Done and also "Epic Status"=To Do. Or vice versa.

You're trying to create a filter with JQL. The JQL for the first bullet point above is trivial. The JQL for the second bullet point above might be something like:

project=XYZ AND type=Epic AND statusCategory="In Progress"

However, this still isn't doing what you want. I believe you want the children of these in-progress Epics, not the Epics themselves.

And that's where things get tricky. Standard Jira JQL does not have a good way to select children of an Epic. Folks who truly need that functionality look at Marketplace Apps to provide that. Here's one option:

* Enhanced Search (or the full ScriptRunner version)

Here is a deep link into their documentation addressing your use-case.

But be sure to look on the Atlassian Marketplace for other options. Some of these will cost money, and only some of them provide the "Epic children" JQL enhancement you need.

Sorry there isn't an easier answer!