Specify JIRA subtask ID

[Scott Hung]

I'd like to specify (part of) the subtask ID. Using JIRA for bug tracking and sometimes a bug must be fixed on multiple branches. I'd like to use subtasks to specify the different branches. Unfortunately, our developers can get confused by different issue IDs so I'd like have subtasks inherit the parents' ID. Something like parent ID is 5000, subtask 1 is 5000.1, subtask 2 is 5000.2.

Is there a way to achieve this?

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Accepted solution]

No. Sorry.

Jira issue keys are generated sequentially within the project. You can't change it without a massive rewrite of core code.

A number of sites I know of have assorted work-arounds. One I coded was a simple derived field that displays the parent and child numbers together (it's aimed mainly at sort on the navigator). I've also seen auto-sequencing done, but that felt a little clunky to me. All the solutions I've seen are separate from the key as Jira sees it though.

[Scott Hung]

That's unfortunate. I noticed JIRA filters often display the parent ID before the subtask ID which helps the context, but for a developer that's doing a smart commit that context won't exist on the CLI. Thanks anyway, though.

[Adrian Shiel]

yes please.  seems like a basic way of structuring sub tasks but kind of annoying that in my "Open Issue" list when I sort I might get new sub tasks listed in between primary tasks.  I have a filter for main tasks that helps.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Same answer - it's not going to happen.

[Deleted user]

And we are almost at the end of 2019 now. Jira did not fix this request yet? We are thinking of starting to use Jira, but this thing will seriously bother us. I'm also using a filter to hide subtasks in certain statusses so you don't lose track of main tasks but it's not ideal this way.

And if it is not going to be fixed ever... does anyone have suggestions for best practises I might try?

Looking forward to your replies.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

There's nothing to fix, it's all working the way Atlassian have designed it to.

There's not a lot we can say for "best practices" - it's too vague a phrase to describe what you're looking for.  Guidance on using sub-tasks is "use them to split up stories so that you can assign and track parts of stories separately", not a lot more we can say!

[David Bennett]

This is exactly what I'd like to do.  Our issues tend to represent scrum sprints or epics within a project more than individual issues such as bugs or service requests.  This is not always the case but it's pretty common.   The problem with creating a sub-task at the same numbering tier is that things get cluttered easily.  In my opinion,  there needs to be a new structured tier under an issue to handle this scenario.  This is what I expected from sub-task,  not a linked peer issue but a lower level task.

Right now I using keywords like STATUS: at the top of comments for these which is a kludge.

[Roman Bogdashkin]

Same issue. Trying to organize Project Portfolio Office. I think PPO functionality would be a great improvement for JIRA.