How could I publish in Confluence a list of Jira tasks ordered by task dependency?

[Mario Sotil]

Hi everyone!

I'm a Jira newbie. I'm trying to get a list of tasks which belong to a specific epic, but ordered by task dependency.

I tried to do so by creating a Filter like this one:

`project = COOL_PROJECT AND "Epic Link" = EPIC_IM_MANAGING`

Then, I embedded this Filter in my Confluence doc, and it works. However, I don't  know how to order the tasks by dependencies, showing first those tasks which doesn't have any blocker, and later, those blocked by a previous one.

It could be a plain list, a Gantt chart or something else. There are two important things:

- Give visibility of the task dependencies
- Could be embedded in a Confluence document to be shared later

Any ideas how to do so? Thanks in advance,

[Jack Brickey]

Hi @Mario Sotil , OOTB that capability does not exist. There is Advanced Roadmaps in Jira premium that will allow you to visualize issue dependencies. - view-and-manage-dependencies-in-advanced-roadmaps . I also believe that you can add advance roadmap due to confluence. However I have not done this myself so I cannot comment on how it may or may not let your needs. If premium is not an option then consider the marketplace for add-ons.

[Jack Brickey]

Hi @Mario Sotil , welcome to the community.

By "task dependency" do you mean that you are using links for this or something else?

If you were to order by link type it would simply be alphabetical so I'm not sure that gets you what you want. Unless of course you create leap types that would meet your needs which is undesirable I expect. Maybe what you could do is create multiple filter list inside confluence. By that I mean you would create a filter with a given link type that you want to be first and place it in the document first then you would have another filter with the next link type etc. 

Let me know if any of this makes sense.

[Mario Sotil]

@Jack Brickey Yes, by "task dependency" I meant "by tasks blocked by other tasks". As we know, dependencies are a useful information for project management to find which tasks could be executed in parallel or not. For instance, this is a list of tasks and their dependencies:

Task# | Description | Responsible | Task dependency

---------------------------------------------------

1     | ABC         | John        | -
2     | DEF         | Victoria    | -
3     | GHI         | Victoria    | 1,2
4     | JKL         | John        | 3
5     | MNO         | Victoria    | 4
6     | PQR         | John        | 4

I'm looking to generate something similar in Jira from the tasks which belong to an epic.

If there is a way to generate this list of tasks ordered by their dependencies, that would be pretty useful. It makes easier to spot the right execution order and what could be parallelized. If I can include that table into my project's documentation in Confluence, then I will not need to create this list by hand in the doc as a "table of Jira tasks", copying one by one. I tried to do so, but maintenance was horrible as every time a new task was added, I had to insert the task in the right place in the table, renumber all the `Task#` and be sure that `Task dependency` was matching the new task numbers.

Is there any hope that Jira has something like that? Any alternative?

[Mario Sotil]

To clarify, it's not necessary to have sequential numbers. Instead of "1, 2, 3, etc", It could be the usual Jira task ids (SOMETHING-12345). The most important part is to have the list by the order of execution. As I was mentioning before, the order is defined by the dependencies between tasks.

[Jack Brickey]

Hi @Mario Sotil ,

It seems that you are on JIra premium, correct? Assuming so you do have advanced roadmaps which allows you to visualize dependencies - view-and-manage-dependencies-in-advanced-roadmaps . I believe that advanced roadmaps can be added to Confluence though I have not tried this myself. If this does not meet your needs then possibly consider an add-on in the marketplace.