Sorting User Stories under Features in Jira Roadmap

[Phillip Nalesny]

Dear Atlassian Community,

I'm encountering an issue with sorting User Stories under the corresponding Features in my Jira Roadmap. I'm trying to organize User Stories labeled with the acronym BKS-### under the Features labeled with CATART4-###. The User Stories are created at the team level, while the Features are at the ART level.

I tried 2 approaches:

1. when attempting to drag and drop the User Story under the respective Feature, it doesn't work.(see screenshot 1 "drad & drop")

2. when using the Select & Bulk Actions function and clicking on Parent, I can't seem to select the specific Feature, which resides at the ART level, to nest the User Story underneath it. It says "no matches" (see screenshot 2 "select & bulk action parent")

I've searched extensively for a solution, but I'm unable to find one. In summary, my question is: How can I nest User Stories under Features at the ART level in the Jira Roadmap?

Any guidance or assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you in advance for your help!

Best regards, Phil

[Trudy Claspill]

Hello @Phillip Nalesny 

Jira enforces the hierarchy of issue types globally. If your global issue type hierarchy is

Feature
|-- Epic
    |-- Story
        |-- sub-task

...then a Story's parent can only be an Epic. An Epic's parent can only be a feature. You can't skip intervening levels and set a Story's parent to be a Feature.

Does that match your scenario?

[Phillip Nalesny]

Hello @Trudy Claspill

thank you very much for your answer. Yes, that matches my scenario.

Unfortunately we do not use Epics in our ART & Team. Is there any chance to adapt the hierarchy to: 

Feature
  |-- Story
    |-- Sub-Task

Maybe that would be a solution.

Thank you very much for your support.

[Ste Wright]

Hi @Phillip Nalesny 

You can customise the hierarchy.

Instructions are here:

• Cloud: https://support.atlassian.com/jira-cloud-administration/docs/configure-the-issue-type-hierarchy/
• Server/DC: 
  • https://confluence.atlassian.com/adminjiraserver/configuring-terminology-1063561685.html
  • https://confluence.atlassian.com/jirasoftwareserver/configure-your-jira-software-instance-for-advanced-roadmaps-1044784156.html#ConfigureyourJiraSoftwareinstanceforAdvancedRoadmaps-CustomHierarchyLevelsARJ

^ It looks like you're on Server/DC based on the screenshots.

These instructions let you create the Issue Type and the Hierarchy, and then modify the "Epic" wording to make it "Feature" - eg. Epic Name > Feature Name, etc.

Ste

[Phillip Nalesny]

Hi @Ste Wright ,

thank you for your answer. I think I asked my question in a misleading way - sorry. I dont want to change the hierarchy of the issue types. In that case, I would get in serious trouble with the other 10 teams in our agile release train :D

Instead I would like to change the displayed hierarchy within the Jira road map to:

Feature
|-- Story
|---- Sub-Task

In a that way I would "ignore" the epics (because we dont use epics at all in our projects as an issue type).

[Trudy Claspill]

@Phillip Nalesny 

No, it is not possible to ignore hierarchy levels.

The hierarchy is applied globally. You cannot ignore/skip hierarchy levels on a project by project (or roadmap by roadmap) basis.

You cannot make the Stories appear hierarchically under the Features in the roadmap without including Epics as an intermediate link.

[Phillip Nalesny]

Hey @Trudy Claspill

thanks for your answer. Even though it is a unfortunate one. :(

That'd be a quite useful feature for the jira road maps because all of the projects Ive ever worked in (german automotive industry) have always been structured in that way.

Nevertheless, thanks a lot for your support; best regards.

[Ste Wright]

Hi @Phillip Nalesny 

Isn't that a reason to modify the hierarchy then? If all Projects should work that way?

An alternative is to find an App which can manage for differing hierarchies, such as Structure or another App from the Marketplace

Ste

[Phillip Nalesny]

Hey @Ste Wright ,

theoretically your idea is absolutely right. Practically you would have to change the Jira structure of perhaps millions of Jira issues and the working methods of thousands of people in the organization. That is very time-consuming, laborious and cost-intensive. All this just to use the Road Map function for my one team in Jira? The cost-benefit ratio doesn't make sense.

At this point, and at so many points in the digital transformation, it would make more sense for the software to adapt to the people rather than the people adapting to the software.

A plug-in could solve this, but if you invest millions of euros in the software, the need for such a marginal change without a Plug-In is perhaps not entirely unfounded.