Introducing the new Parent field in company-managed projects

[Konstantin Kulishenkov]

Hi @julia.pacula! Thanks for reporting this.

We're currently fixing this problem, it's tracked at https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JSWCLOUD-26119, which also contains the workaround.

The fix will be released at some point after the holiday period.

Thanks,
Konstantin

[Federico Nardini]

Hello Atlassian team! :)

With the introduction of this new feature/structure, it appears that you have removed a previously existing one that I was finding super helpful, almost essential, to be honest.

I product manage more than one team, each team has its own project.

Previously, when I was clicking on the `Epic Link` field, there was a checkbox that was saying something like "only select issues within project".

Now, it seems to have been replaced by "show done issues".

Could you please advice if this is a setting that a Jira super admin can change?

Or is this a permanent change you have implemented? If the latter is the case, why? Why should you encourage teams to assign stories to closed epics?

In my case, the absence of the feature I am talking about, has already led me multiple times to mistakenly assign let's say a "tech debt" or "Ubuntu upgrade" parent from another project, and only realising it a few sprints later. If I realised it before it may have been for sheer coincidence of using different colours.

Previously, when I had to assign epics that I knew may have equal or similar name to other project's epics, I was always toggling the box I am talking about, and it was super smooth preventing me to make any mistakes.

Now, it is also showing me a bunch of parents from projects that I don't own, and I don't care about.

Could you please advice? :)

Thanks,

Fed

[Harshil Shah]

In my Jira Cloud Automation, when an Issue is created via Jira Connector with certain conditions, I used to assign an Epic. Now the Parent field is only allowing two options, Current Issue and Trigger Issue. I cannot select the Issue I want to put as Parent. How do I resolve it?

[Brian Wallace]

Not a big fan of the visual impact of the change. 

Previously, I could have just the Epic name showing: Q1 Database Migration

But now, I seemingly have to have the ticket info and then the Epic name, so in the ticket sidebar I end up seeing something like: DATA-INTAKE-1994 Q1 Da...

When you have multiple similarly named Epics, this can really slow you down. 

[David Shaw]

@Federico Nardini @NiYunfan @Annelotte   and others

The issues at the top of the list of suggested parent candidates differs from the old epic link behaviour and we have received feedback from some customers that this is annoying and a regression. We have raised a suggestion ticket JSWCLOUD-26162 to gather data and feedback on this topic. Please add your voices to that ticket to help guide our response. Thanks. 

[David Shaw]

@roonski 

Just a minor point, but from a user point of view I don't find it helpful at all to change "Epic Link" to "Parent". Epic is the actual useful concept I think about, not some technical "parent".

Thanks for your patience for our response. The standardisation on "parent" vs the old parenting concepts of subtask link, epic link and parent link, will, we hope, make things simpler in the long run. Previously epic link was used when linking a story to its parent, while parent link was used for linking an epic to its parent (or its parent's parent and so on). Ultimately this a little confusing.

[Annelotte]

@David Shaw Thank you for creating the suggestion ticket! I would have loved to see this picked up as a bug instead of a suggestion, since the functionality was there in the past ... 

To all: please vote on this

https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JSWCLOUD-26162

[Federico Nardini]

I agree with Annelotte, as a customer I would have rather seen this raised either as a bug or a feature regression. Anyway, thanks for raising JSWCLOUD-26162, I have added my vote and comment.

[Florent Baret]

Hello,

Coming back for a positive feedback, it works well and simplify a lot in a context of using both Epic link/ Parent link (or even with Sub-task link). So thanks a lot to have turned that generic.

Do you have any view when a custom issue type will have the same "Epic" functionnalities ? Above all for Epic panels. They are renamed now with the hierarchy level instead of Epic, so we expect that everything on the same level have the same functionalities no? (I can repost that in a more relevant blogpost if needed)

[Julio Bohler]

Hi @Irene  I have in my ORG ScriptRunner scripted fields that are used in order to link issues. We have an issue type called "Oportunity" and we associate it with epics. Then any task created in any Jira project will populate the scripted field with the name of the "Oportunity", so that we know which specific tasks are part of one "Oportunity" and then measure the amount of hours spent. Basically, we group Epics in Oportunities and Tasks in Epics.

Those ScriptRunner scripted fields read the issue and check the field "Epic Link"...if the Epic entered in "Epic Link" field is associated with an "Oportunity", then the scripted field is populated with the summary of the Oportunity, else the scripted field receives "none". Right now, those scripts are still working as Epic Link is still there. But once Epic Link is removed, will I have to update the scripts to look to "Parent" instead? Or should it keep working as is? Do we know when Epic Link will be removed for good?

Also, those scripts are referenced to the Epic Link customfield ID. If I were to replace Epic Link with "Parent", I would need the ID number, which I do not have.

I just want to avoid any future problems and plan ahead as I'm not a developer and any complex coding would have to be done with an external partner.

Thanks

[shankar]

Good information

[ruben beaujolais]

Nice, but still looking forward for being able to create a child Epic or adding a child Epic directly from an initiative page 

[Konstantin Kulishenkov]

Hi @Julio Bohler

The "parent" field does not have a custom field ID. To reference it in Jira API / webhooks (I assume ScriptRunner uses that), we need to use just "parent", please see examples here: https://community.developer.atlassian.com/t/deprecation-of-the-epic-link-parent-link-and-other-related-fields-in-rest-apis-and-webhooks/54048

This field is ready to use, and we encourage all users to switch from Epic Link / Parent Link to Parent as described in the document above.

As it's mentioned there, the deprecation period for Epic Link and Parent Link expired on 30 Nov 2022. When ready, we will communicate the date when these fields will be deleted well in advance. At this stage, we strongly encourage all users to change their Jira API calls from these deprecated fields to Parent.

Thanks,
Konstantin

[Dan Rushing]

Is this just impacting Cloud, or will Data Center have this change as well? 

[David Shaw]

Hi @Dan Rushing

This change is for Cloud only. The are no plans currently to back-port this to DC.

[Dan Rushing]

Thanks @David Shaw , is there a easy way for people to know if it is Cloud vs Data Center? I had to guess it was for Cloud, but still needed to ask for sure. 

[Connie Miranda]

@Irene  - can the new parent field show different issue types? THanks

[David Shaw]

@Dan Rushing 

Is there a easy way for people to know if it is Cloud vs Data Center? I had to guess it was for Cloud, but still needed to ask for sure.

That's a fair question and I couldn't see anything explicit about this (although the linked community post mentioned cloud). We've updated the tags on this post (see top of the block on the right).

@Irene has also added a note at the beginning to 100% clear.

[imtiaz.ahmed]

Can this new PARENT field made as mandatory field when we create a new issue? Right now it is optional. 

[Kevin Paugam]

Hi @Irene , 

I understand that this change will be rolled out on February 13th on my instances in Bundle Track.

And I can already see some of the changes on my instances in Continous Track. For instance, I can see the new "Parent" field when creating/editing an issue: 

However, on these instances were all changes are supposed to be rolled out, I am not able to see the changes mentioned in your post regarding the breadcrumb and the "Parent" option in the "Actions(...)" menu. On my side, I have no such options. See screenshot of my menu below: 

Do you know what we should do to enable this option?

Thank you in advance for your inputs.

[Jason]

How will smart values in Jira Automation be handled with these changes?

[Lori Milam]

Is the data from Epic Link just copied into a new column called Parent? Or is Parent just pulling the data from the Epic Link/Parent Link column in the database? Basically I want to ensure deleting/removing the old field will not affect the new field showing the existing data.

[David Shaw]

@Lori Milam 

There are distinct storage locations for the epic link and parent fields. Under-the-hood they contain the same values. At some point during the transition, epic link values were copied into the parent field. Since then their equality has been maintained. Late in the transition, we started reading the value from the parent location. At some point down the track, we will stop writing to the old epic location. The same process applied to subtask links and parent links.

You don't need to take any action to delete the epic link field. If you remove it from an issue view, the only consequence is that you no longer see it.

[Lori Milam]

@David Shaw Thank you for the explanation!

[Alex Shapovalov]

For some reason, the new "parent" field is prepopulated by default with some random issues. That happens when I use "Create issue" button at the "backlog" section. If I use the "Create" button at the top of the page "parent" is empty as expected.

Can you please make it empty by default from "backlog" as well?