Create a bidirectional ‘Blocks / Is blocked by’ hierarchy in Structure for JIRA (Structure DC)

leonard armagnat

Hi everyone,

I’m trying to create a Jira Structure (using the Structure-DC plugin) for a project that clearly visualizes issue dependencies. My goal is to have:
Issue
├── Blocks
│      └── (linked issues that this issue blocks)
└── Is blocked by
        └── (linked issues that block this issue)

…so that for each issue, its related issues are grouped under two boxes depending on the link direction.

I’ve tried several approaches:

1. Insert project issues, then use an Extend generator to add linked issues of type “blocking” (bidirectional), and use a Group generator by a Formula to determine the link direction (“Blocks” vs “Is blocked by”) as a string only for level 2.
   • ✅ Works visually as desired
   • ❌ Performance drops when there are more than ~10 issues
2. Insert linked issues first using JQL, then group by link type (bidirectional).
   • ✅ Very fast
   • ❌ Includes issues from other projects
   • ❌ Loses the explicit link direction

Here is the most optimized formulas i found for the grouping of solution 1, but with performances issues :

WITH parent = PARENT{this}:
WITH link = issueLinks
.FILTER($.type = "blocks" AND ($.source = parent OR $.destination = parent))
.FIRST():
IF(
link.destination = parent,
"Blocks",
link.source = parent,
"Is blocked by",
"Error"
)

I want both: performance for larger projects and a hierarchy that clearly shows the link direction.

Has anyone successfully built a Structure-DC hierarchy like this, or do you have tips for efficiently displaying bidirectional blocking links while keeping performance acceptable?

Or, alternatively, I’d be interested in suggestions for the best way to efficiently visualize and manage this kind of dependency.

Thanks in advance!

Stepan Kholodov

Hello @leonard armagnat 

The bidirectional extenders can be tricky. The more issues you have in the structure, the more hierarchy levels there are, the more resources such extenders can use. There is no specific restriction - you absolutely can use extenders configured to add both possible link directions - but the configuration should be precise. More specifically, the Extend on levels setting should be set to a manual range of levels (this is an important practice in any extender), and bidirectional extenders should cover as few levels as possible, ideally just one. 

If optimizing the structure and its extenders doesn't improve the performance, please reach out to us directly at our support portal, and we'll have a look.

Best regards,
Stepan
Tempo (the Structure app vendor)