Sort backlog or JQL - Stories/task to appear under their epics

[Matthew Lystad]

Hello!  I commonly need to look at all the epics, stories, sub-tasks (between 100-180 items) usually in a sprint or backlog view using a JQL.   

No matter what I try, I cant get the items associated to appear under their parent epics (and I'm looking at dozens of epics).   

[Walter Buggenhout · Accepted solution]

Hi @Matthew Lystad,

If I understand you correctly, you are hoping to perform a search (in Filters > advanced search?) and were hoping to see the results of that search displayed hierarchically, basically grouped by epics?

If so, the issue navigator (as this view is called) does not have that grouping functionality. You may be able to come close by using a sorted search, like this:

Project = "Your Project" AND issuetype != Epic ORDER BY "Epic link", Key

 I am explicitly excluding epics to return only tasks and added the Epic link column to the search results, which gives you something like this:

If you really want the hierarchy view, you may want to look at how far the roadmap view of your project board may accommodate your needs. Or if you are open to use marketplace apps, there are options available that help you visualise hierarchies in your issues in more or less advanced ways. This list may be a good starting point to explore some options.

Hope this helps!

[Matthew Lystad]

Thank you @Walter Buggenhout it's getting me closer than I was.  Appreciate it.

[Marlene Kegel - codefortynine]

Hi  @Matthew Lystad,

I am Marlene, product manager of the Marketplace app Quick Filters for Jira Dashboards.

With our app you can create an interactive dashboard and filter the data displayed on your dashboard per "Epic Link" or "Epic Name". Doing that you would only see issues which are under one Epic.

On the screenshot below you can see the Quick Controller gadget, which filters the other gadgets on the dashboard.

 You can check out Quick Filters for Jira Dashboards without installation on our demo dashboards. 

[Hannes Obweger - JXL for Jira]

Hi @Matthew Lystad

just to add to Walter's answer: You won't be able to view your issues in a truly hierarchical structure in the backlog view, however there's a few alternatives. Depending on your exact use case, they may be helpful to you:

• If you have Jira Premium, you can view your epics in an Advanced Roadmaps plan. Simply pick your board as an issue source, and off you go.
• If you're open to solutions from the Atlassian Marketplace, there's a couple of hierarchy-focused apps available. These apps often have more powerful ways of defining, showing, and searching through issue hierarchies. I myself work on such an app, in which the hierarchy you're looking for would be trivial to do. I'll provide more details below.

Hope this helps,

Best,

Hannes

[Hannes Obweger - JXL for Jira]

Just to expand on the latter point, this is how this would look in the app that my team and I are working on, JXL for Jira:

For context, JXL is a full-fledged spreadsheet/table view for your issues that allows viewing, inline-editing, sorting, and filtering by all your issue fields, much like you’d do in e.g. Excel or Google Sheets. It also comes with a number of advanced features, including support for (configurable) issue hierarchies, issue grouping by any issue field(s), sum-ups, or conditional formatting.

Once you've set up your view, you can work on your issues directly in JXL, trigger various operations in Jira, or export your issues with just one click.

As said before, there may be other apps that can help with this, too. You may already know that you can trial any app for free for 1 month, and depending on the size of your size, it may be free forever. So if an app is an option for your, perhaps try a few and see which works best for you.

Any questions just let me know,

Best,

Hannes

[Madhu_RVS]

Hi @Matthew Lystad 

If you are open for a mktplace solution, we have built an app for the same use case.

Issue Hierarchy Reports 

Try it out and meet functionalities such as:

- View the full hierarchy of your Epics or linked issues

- Sum up values to see overall progress for your Issue Hierarchy

- Apply filters to put the focus on the relevant data only

- Excel like editing for all the values right on the report and see real time progress updates

- JQL filter for child issues

- Export to a CSV file

- Embedded Epic Hierarchy on Issue Screen

- Dashboard Gadgets

Disclaimer : I am part of the team which developed this app