In a Structure formula, how do I find linked issues of linked issues

Paul Doman September 7, 2022

Business requirement:

Issues can have blockers which are in other projects/environments. I need to be able to see issue-by-issue in my structure, whether each individual blocked issue can be unblocked by taking delivery of the completed blocking issue. Delivery is available when the external project is complete, so I need to be able to see directly if the project is complete - using as a starting point  "this" current issue in the structure.

To recap:

MY STRUCTURE issue IS BLOCKED BY an external issue which WAS INITIATED BY external project.

and I need to be able to determine the status of the external project, indirectly through the blocking issue's links.

 

So far, I can:

1. list the blockers

2. interrogate the blockers to see simple attributes such as status, when a build was done etc

but have failed to drill into the blocker's own list of further links, especially to find which link on the blocker relates  to the project containing the bundle for delivery.

Please note that the identity of the project/s is not known a priori - there can be many active projects across other teams. And they are transient so cannot be hard-coded into filters/formulae.

This works as the first step in the linkages to identify the blockers (straight from the Structure manual):

WITH _Blockers = issuelinks.FILTER($.type = 'Blocks' AND $.destination = this).source:

_Blockers

// this primitive test tells whether a blocker has been in a build:

SEARCH ("SYS",_Blockers.builds,1)

// this shows the issuetype

_Blockers.issuetype

 

But when I try to examine the linkages of the blockers themselves, nothing is shown in the formula:

_Blockers.issuelinks.type

This is where I need to search for a particular linkage type to find the external delivery project, confirm the issuetype of the external project, and start arranging delivery.

 

Your suggestions would be most welcome!

Thanks

Paul

 

 

 

(Context: Structure v7.3)

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David Niro
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September 7, 2022

Hello @Paul Doman ,

David from ALM Works here.

We are only able to retrieve the attributes (such as status) from issues one step removed from the current issue via formula.

An option would be to extend to issues blocking the current issue and from there either use a formula to retrieve status from issues linked to those blocking issues or continue to extend the hierarchy to include those issues directly.

Best Regards,
David

Paul Doman September 8, 2022

Hi David,

Thanks for your suggestion. I had not explored the Extend generator, and using the linked issues has provided a solution. as I can inspect and report on the third level from the second level linked issue, without having to open the third level.

 

Magic

Thanks

Paul

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