JQL for Blocking Issues

[Ammaar Ahmed]

Hi,

I am trying to write a JQL query to filter blocking issues for a specific project.  So far I have:

project = "Project Name" AND issuelinktype = blocks

However, the results show both blocking issues and issues that are "blocked by".  I would like the filter to only show the blocking issues and exclude the "blocked by" issues.  Any advice?

Thanks,

Ammaar

[Max Foerster - K15t · Accepted solution]

Hey @Ammaar Ahmed

please have a look at your issue link configuration. By default, the issue link type "blocks" has the name/description "blocks" and the outward description "blocks". I'm pretty confident that the JQL function looks at the description value as well. So try a different name for it. I tried this once but also had to recreate some issue links. Indexing seemed a bit off but after that I really only got the right results returned.

Please let us know if that solved your problem. :)

Best, Max

[Ammaar Ahmed]

Hi @Max Foerster - K15t

I am not sure I understand the recommended solution.  Here is an example:

So, I would want BI-36 to show up in the filter, but do not want to see BI-24, BI-23, and BI-27.  Does this make sense?

Thanks,

Ammaar

[Max Foerster - K15t]

Hey Ammaar,

makes sense to me and I just tried to explain to you why you get the wrong results returned with your JQL filter. Do you notice the "Name" and "Outward Description"? That's causing the behaviour and feel free to change the configuration to fix it for you. :) 

Best, Max

[Ammaar Ahmed]

Thanks @Max Foerster - K15t ,

The fix worked!  Now I have set up some JQL queries on the board to indicate colors for the issues that are blocking (red) and the issues that are blocked by (blue), for better visual management.  I am almost there, the only thing I am trying to figure out is I want the color for a "blocked by" issue to go away when the corresponding blocking issue is resolved.  Any suggestions on JQL for this?  Right now I have:

project = "Business Intelligence " AND statusCategory != Done AND issuelinktype = "is blocked by"

I am on Jira Cloud.

Thanks,

Ammaar 

[Max Foerster - K15t]

That's not possible by default in Jira. You will need a third-party app to add this kind of JQL functions.

Best, Max

[Ben Sharir]

I renamed the Outward Description from 'blocks' to 'blocking' and tried the jql query and the results are still the same. Do I need to give some time for the indexing in the background to complete?

project = {project id} AND Sprint in openSprints() AND issueLinkType = blocks

[Max Foerster - K15t]

So the description name is still "blocks", @Ben Sharir

[Ben Sharir]

The outward description is now 'blocking'. I wonder if it's because block and blocking both has the same root and Jira's search is trimming words and searching the root word. I can try a completely different word and see if it makes a difference.

[Ben Sharir]

I renamed the outward description from 'blocks' to 'preventing' and now it's working as expected. Thanks @Max Foerster - K15t !

[Ignas Selvestravičius]

Sooo maybe someone is still looking for the solution. Short answer: change the name of the link from "Blocks" to something else like I did "Issue blocks" and then the JQL

 issueLinkType = "blocks" 

returns issues only with outward link type "blocks"

The solution is provided in Atlassian documentation here.

[lenI]

What we use to identify blocker links is the following: 

issueFunction in linkedIssuesOf("key in (JIRAKEY-XXXX) and status not in (closed, done)") and project = "PROJECT ID" and issuetype in (bug,incident) AND status not in (closed,Done) AND issueFunction in hasLinks("blocks")

[Ben Sharir]

@lenII tried your suggestion and received this error message:

Your JQL includes the [hasLinks] function from the [Adaptavist Scriptrunner] app for Jira Server. This function works differently in Jira Cloud. Refer to https://docs.adaptavist.com/sr4jc/latest/features/scriptrunner-jql-keywords-functions for details.

[Emanuel Y]

Hi @Ben Sharir is there another way to see your link? If it is a pic can you post it here? The link is currently taking us to the the wonderful 404 club. :-) 

[Ben Sharir]

@Emanuel Y It's a message I received from Jira. Try it yourself and see if Jira updated the link or message.