Epics under Initiatives in Advanced Roadmaps

[jeroen.wilmes]

I have Advanced Roadmaps. I have an "Initiative" in my plan and now I want to create Epics under the Initiative. I can do that from my plan. Works fine, but to increase efficiency i have two questions:

1) Can I make automation that when I create an Epic under the initiative that certain fields from the Initiative are copied to the Epic?

2) If I create an Epic in a Jira project, can I make it from there a child of an Initiative in de advanced roadmap plan? I mean a real child, not a link from type child, because than the Epic doesn't show up under the initiative in my plan.

[jeroen.wilmes · Accepted solution]

Thanks for helping. I checked the different filters and all needed projects are also included.

I do see the Initiative and the Epic, but the Epics shows up as having no parent. From the advanced roadmap plan I can bring it under the initiative, that all works fine but not efficient.

To me it seems an issue with integration of Advanced Roadmaps with Jira. The Link types in Jira are NO hierarchy links. And from Advanced Roadmaps down to Jira it works; I can pull the EPic under the Inititiative but the other way around from Jira making an epic a child of an Initiative in Advanced roadmap doesn't work. Hopefully Atlassian is going to solve that sooner or later.

[Avigail Manheim]

I've been having the exact same issue, and am grateful for you posting this so that I know to stop searching for a solution (unless you have an update since May). 

[jeroen.wilmes]

In Jira you can create a parent in advanced roadmap. From Epics (only from Epics, but that is the hierarchy) you need the field "parent link" and in that field you can choose "initiatives" in Advanced roadmaps.  Works the same as for Stories where you can make them a child of an EPic by filling the "epic link" field.  

You must assure that the parent link field is added to the field- and screen configuration of you project.

[Avigail Manheim]

I have the parent link field added to my epics. And if I drag and drop epics under initiatives within the Advanced Roadmap view, the field will populate. My problem is that if I just fill in the field on the epic itself, Advanced Roadmaps isn't automatically showing the epic under the initiative. I still need to drag and drop. I'm trying to save myself the manual labor as I create new Plans. 

[Avigail Manheim]

Perhaps you know of an easier way in Advanced Roadmaps to get the field to populate that's not drag and drop? (Given the number of initiatives and epics we have, dragging or using arrows is very time consuming as it requires lots of scrolling up and down on the screen.)

[jeroen.wilmes]

Let me check if I understand your problem well.

After you created the parent link in the Epic and looked for it in the Advanced Roadmap plan, did you refresh your screen with the advanced Roadmap plan?

[Avigail Manheim]

Yes, I refreshed.

I think this snapshot gives a lot of insight to the problem. There are 5 epics that had initially used the "parent link" to link them to this initiative. None showed up under the initiative though when looking at Advanced Roadmaps. I then dragged one of the epics while in the Advance Roadmaps view. Notice that OAS-80 now appears in two different places on the initiative's ticket: both in the "child issues" list, and the "linked issues" list. For some reason, it isn't actually a child issue until I drag and drop, even though it's using the parent link.

[jeroen.wilmes]

Thanks this clarifies.
It is a bit confusing in Jira. Parent and child links as link issues, like you did in this example, are not the hierarchical relations between Advanced Roadmaps and Jira.

You should add the field "parent link" to Epic screen configuration.

-Go to one of your Epics.

-In the right panel you see the fields, in the right bottom you find the configure wheel. Open in.

-You will come in the lay-out configure screen.

-look at the fields in the right panel and look for "parent link" if you find it, than drag and drop it to your context fields in the left part.

That should solve you problem. 

[Avigail Manheim]

Solved indeed! Thank you so much!

[David Wuth]

For the first question, the answer is Yes. I have done this successfully with standard Jira automation as an action when the issue is created. The key is that you must have the parent link field on the create screen and select the initiative as the parent link.

There may also be a second option using JMWE add-on. Although I have not done this specifically, in the Event Based actions it appears that I can set up automation that when an issue is created it can copy from the parent issue in the Portfolio Hierarchy. Using JMWE helps to reduce the count of automation executions under Jira automation. We have just started using event-based actions and I really like this tool.

For the second question you are able to make the epic a child of an initiative by using the Parent Link field. That field must be added to the screen, as noted in the answer to the first question. This I know works for certain as I just did this action today. You do have to refresh the plan to see new issues, of course.

[jeroen.wilmes]

I'm not sure, but if I make an Epic from Project X child of an initiative in Project Y, and I look at My plans in Advanced Roadmaps the Epic shows up in my plan under the epics without a parent inititiave regardless the link a created. I need to drag the EPIC under the initiative in order to establish the hierarchical relation and that is what I want to avoid, because that is a lot of work.

I think that the same case with the automation you suggested. Links do create links, but they don't create a hierarchical relation. 

It seems to me that the integration of advanced roadmaps with Jira is one-way.

[David Wuth]

The issue is most likely the filter/board used for the plan, which is excluding the project of the initiative. We have several epics in that scenarios because the initiative is under a different project. You could alter the configuration of your plan to include a filter that has just the specific initiatives you want to include from that other project, instead of all issues from that other project. The relationship is there, as you can see on either the epic or initiative. The problem is probably the Advanced Roadmap plan.

[jeroen.wilmes]

Let me check if I understand your problem well.

After you created the parent link in the Epic and looked for it in the Advanced Roadmap pland, did you refresh your screen with the advanced Roadmap plan?

[jeroen.wilmes]

Apologies, wrong place posted, forget about it here.