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JQL Assistance - child issues of any epic in a particular planning increment

Lorinda Quesenberry

I am currently building a confluence page that displays % of work by parent item by pulling data from Jira. My current JQL is pulling all epics for a particular quarter and stories, tasks, spikes, defects tied to a group of sprints tallying up story points to show how we spend our time by parent item. After reviewing, I can see that I am double counting on the story points as we also update story points on epics.

I need a jql that identifies all child issues (story, task, spike, defect) of any epic in a particular quarter (planning increment)

Accepted answers

James Gamble

Hola Lorinda,

If that field is only populated in Epic, native JQL can't dynamically perform a parent lookup based on another JQL query. In other words, you can query the Epics for a PI, and you can query children of specific Epics, but you can't nest those together as "children of every Epic where Planning Increment = Q4."

For a fixed set of Epics, you can use parentEpic in (ABC-123, ABC-456, ABC-789) AND issuetype in (Story, Task, Spike, Defect)

The parentEpic function is documented here.

If the Planning Increment field is also populated on the Story, Task, Spike, and Defect issues themselves, then it becomes much simpler: "Planning Increment" = "Q4" AND issuetype in (Story, Task, Spike, Defect)

That would also solve the double-counting problem by excluding the Epics entirely.

If the PI exists only on the Epics and you need the result to stay dynamic as Epics are added or removed, you'd need either automation to copy the PI value down to the child issues or an app that supports JQL subqueries against parent Epics.

Thanks,

James

Sabbir Al Fahad

Hi Lorinda,

Native JQL can't do this in one step because it doesn't support subqueries. You can't write something like parent in (issuetype = Epic AND "Planning Increment" = "PI 4"). Depending on your setup, there are a few ways around it.

First, find the epics for the quarter:

issuetype = Epic AND "Planning Increment" = "PI 2026-Q4"

Then paste their keys into a second query:

parent in (ABC-101, ABC-102, ABC-115) 
AND issuetype in (Story, Task, Spike, Defect)

This works well if the number of epics per PI is manageable. The downside is that you have to update the key list each quarter. On Jira Data Center, or older company-managed setups, use "Epic Link" in (...) instead of parent in (...).

Josh

Hi @Lorinda Quesenberry, to build on James's point: if you copy the PI value down to the children, the query becomes simple and stays dynamic with no app. It takes two small rules:

Rule 1: when an epic's PI changes, push it to its children

- Trigger: Field value changed, Planning Increment

- Condition: Work item type = Epic

- Branch: For Children, then Edit work item, Planning Increment = Copy from trigger work item

Rule 2: when a child is created or re-parented, pull it from the epic

- Trigger: Work item created, plus a second trigger: Field value changed on Parent (if Parent isn't in the list, type it and press Enter)

- Condition: Work item type in Story, Task, Spike, Defect

- Action: Edit work item, Planning Increment = Copy from parent

Run Rule 1 once manually (or bulk edit) to backfill the current quarter. Your Confluence query is then:

"Planning Increment" = "PI 2026-Q4" AND issuetype in (Story, Task, Spike, Defect)

That also fixes the double counting, because the epics are excluded by type. Their story points never enter the total, whatever you've put on them.

All comments

Joseph Chung Yin

@Lorinda Quesenberry

Take a look this KB - https://support.atlassian.com/jira-software-cloud/docs/jql-functions/#parentEpic--

Typically, one should avoid adding story points against the Epic issue type, just allow all of its children to roll-up their story points assignments. Have you try to use Advanced Roadmaps for Jira (included in one's Jira Premium/Enterprise subscription)

to obtain the story points roll-up to Epics? Take a look at this posting -

https://community.atlassian.com/forums/discussion/3273478/story-point-rollup-in-jira-whats-native-what-automation-can-do-and-where-both-stop

Hope this helps.

Best, Joseph

James Gamble

Hola Lorinda,

For a fixed set of Epics, you can use parentEpic in (ABC-123, ABC-456, ABC-789) AND issuetype in (Story, Task, Spike, Defect)

The parentEpic function is documented here.

That would also solve the double-counting problem by excluding the Epics entirely.

Thanks,

James

Sabbir Al Fahad

Hi Lorinda,

First, find the epics for the quarter:

issuetype = Epic AND "Planning Increment" = "PI 2026-Q4"

Then paste their keys into a second query:

parent in (ABC-101, ABC-102, ABC-115) 
AND issuetype in (Story, Task, Spike, Defect)

Bartek Szajkowski _ Orbiscend OU

Hello @Lorinda Quesenberry

I'm Bartek from Orbiscend. If you are open for third-party app, I would like to recommend, to check our JQL Argon app.

As said above, native JQL can't use subqueries. If an app is an option for you, JQL Argon has a childrenOf() function that does exactly this:

issue in childrenOf("issuetype = Epic AND 'Planning Increment' = 'PI 2026-Q4'")
AND issuetype in (Story, Task, Spike, Defect)

The epic list stays dynamic, so you don't have to update keys every quarter.
Epics aren't in the results, so their story points won't be counted twice.

JQL Argon you can easily find on Atlassian Marketplace: JQL Argon

Hope this helps!
Enjoy

Bartek from Orbiscend Team (JQL Argon app provider)

CelesteCS

Hi, I'm with CelesteCS. Since the end result is a Confluence page, another way that avoids the double counting altogether: our Reporting for Confluence app builds the report in two levels, so you don't need a single JQL for "children of epics in PI X":

Level 1 - a Reporting Jira Data Provider for the epics: issuetype = Epic AND "Planning Increment" = "PI 26.3" (your field and value)
Level 2 - a second Jira Data Provider whose query references the epic of the current branch (parent = CurrentParentItem.key AND issuetype in (Story, Task, Spike, Defect)), so every epic gets exactly its own children
The story points are taken from the level-2 items only, so the estimate stored on the epic itself is never added

Two-level example (epics with their stories)

Josh

Hi @Lorinda Quesenberry, to build on James's point: if you copy the PI value down to the children, the query becomes simple and stays dynamic with no app. It takes two small rules:

Rule 1: when an epic's PI changes, push it to its children

- Trigger: Field value changed, Planning Increment

- Condition: Work item type = Epic

- Branch: For Children, then Edit work item, Planning Increment = Copy from trigger work item

Rule 2: when a child is created or re-parented, pull it from the epic

- Trigger: Work item created, plus a second trigger: Field value changed on Parent (if Parent isn't in the list, type it and press Enter)

- Condition: Work item type in Story, Task, Spike, Defect

- Action: Edit work item, Planning Increment = Copy from parent

Run Rule 1 once manually (or bulk edit) to backfill the current quarter. Your Confluence query is then:

"Planning Increment" = "PI 2026-Q4" AND issuetype in (Story, Task, Spike, Defect)

That also fixes the double counting, because the epics are excluded by type. Their story points never enter the total, whatever you've put on them.

Josh

(Duplicate post, please see my reply above.)

Josh

(Duplicate post, please see my reply above.)

Druvis Cukurs (Lineset)

Hi, @Lorinda Quesenberry!

Leaving the epics out fixes the double count, and their own points are still worth keeping as the estimate made up front. Put each epic's points beside its stories' total rather than inside it, and the gap shows which epics grew during the PI.

Sumline is mine, so read this with that in mind: it applies that rule for you. When an epic and its stories both carry points, one level counts (the children, unless an admin picks the parent) and the other is shown as not counted. Its table lists every epic across the spaces you pick with points done / total and %, and downloads as Excel or CSV. It lives in Jira, not in Confluence.

https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1510970263

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