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Hierarchische backlog view

Etienne Vercouteren_nlt1mi

As a product owner, I (like my development team) want to be able to see a hierarchical backlog in the backlog view. Currently, all items can only be viewed individually in the (sprint) backlog. Just as the "List" view provides a good hierarchical view, I want to be able to see a similar hierarchy in the backlog. Our entire team can't imagine why this isn't possible.
We want to be able to see at a glance which user stories belong together, in both the product backlog and the sprint backlog. If tasks or user stories from the same epic are spread across multiple sprints, I expect to see the same epic in both sprint 1 and sprint 2, but only with the user stories scheduled for that sprint. For example:

Sprint 01

Epic 01
- User story/Task 01
- User story/Task 02

Sprint 02

Epic 01
- User story/Task 03
Epic 02
- User story/Task 04

Backlog

Epic 02
- User story/Task 05
- User story/Task 06

Is it possible, but we just don't see where the setting for this view is? Or is there perhaps a plugin that can do this?

Accepted answers

All comments

Trudy P Claspill

Hell0 @Etienne Vercouteren

The view you desire is not possible in the native Jira Scrum Backlog screen regardless of the apps you may add to the system.

You may be able to get a view like that from a third party app where that view is entirely separate from the native Backlog screen, but I don't think there are any apps that will change the native Backlog screen to provide that view.

I have never tried to produce a report like what you describe, so I don't have any specific apps to suggest. In general you might want to look at apps that support different planning views or hierarchical item reporting.

Paul Glantschnig _Appfire_

Hi @Etienne Vercouteren ,

That's a common and great question. The standard Jira backlog view is a flat list, which isn't ideal for visualizing the full structure of your work.

A native solution for this is Advanced Roadmaps (available in Jira Premium), which is designed to plan and track work across multiple levels of hierarchy and projects (now spaces).

If you're open to solutions from the Atlassian Marketplace, your use case can also be solved very easily by the app my team and I are working on: JXL for Jira.

JXL is a full-fledged spreadsheet/table app for Jira that allows you to view, inline-edit, sort, and filter your issues in a highly-structured way.

For your specific need, JXL includes powerful and configurable issue hierarchies. You can set up a view that shows all your issues in a tree structure (e.g., Sprint > Epic > Story > Sub-task, or any other structure you need).

In this hierarchical view, you can:
* See all your fields and inline-edit them directly.  
* Group your issues by any field.   
* Configure sum-ups for fields like Story Points or Time Spent, which will roll up from the child issues to the parent levels.   
* Drag and drop issues to re-order them or change their parent.
This all works right out of the box and is much faster and more flexible than a standard backlog.

Here is an example of what a hierarchical view can look like in JXL:

Let me know if you have any questions!

Best,

Paul

yqiao

I think Jira’s backlog and sprint views don't currently support a hierarchical, collapsible grouping of issues by Epic (or parent/child) as you describe. This is a well-known limitation and a frequent feature request from Jira users.

There are some workarounds that can partially resolve your needs:

Structure for Jira

Structure by Tempo - Jira Portfolio Management PPM | Atlassian Marketplace
Allows you to build custom, hierarchical views of your issues (Epics > Stories > Sub-tasks, etc.).
Supports grouping by Epic, filtering by sprint, and more.
Can be used alongside the standard backlog for planning.

Advanced Roadmaps (formerly Portfolio for Jira)

What are plans in Jira Premium? | Jira Cloud | Atlassian Support
Provides a hierarchical view (Epics > Stories > Sub-tasks) and planning features.
However, this is a separate interface from the backlog and is available only on Jira Premium/Enterprise.

Etienne Vercouteren_nlt1mi

Thanks for your reaction. We love to try the JXL app for Jira, but I don't think it will solve this specific problem we have. Although it can help us to create a better list view.

Etienne Vercouteren_nlt1mi

Thanks for your reaction. Your proposed workarounds don't quite do what we want. The backlog view is fine in principle. If only they could show hierarchy...

Etienne Vercouteren_nlt1mi

Thanks for your reaction anyway,

Paul Glantschnig _Appfire_

Thanks @Etienne Vercouteren , definitely give it a try, we also have some great features in the pipeline, that might be interesting as well.
If you are curious, you can find more information on our JXL Roadmap

Don't hesitate to reach out if you have any questions.

Best,

Paul

kh_jbau

@Paul Glantschnig _Appfire_, if you're part of a Marketplace App team, we would like to ask you to follow the steps outlined here to get an 'Atlassian Partner' lozenge for your profile! Cheers!

Luke_jones48

Have you considered Teppe: Backlog Hierarchy & Structure for Jira as a way of visualising your entire backlog at a glance. You can export certain views too as SVGs.

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