Unlock the power of Jira: how to visualise linked issues for project success
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Unlock the power of Jira: how to visualise linked issues for project success
Wilson Ong
10th September, 2024
8 min read
Wilson Ong
10th September, 2024
8 min read
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Understanding issue linking and Jira issue link types
How to visualise linked issues in Jira
Try Hierarchy for Jira to unlock project management success
Discover how you can unlock the full potential of Jira for your projects by linking your issues, enabling you to instantly identify dependencies and prioritise your work more effectively than ever.
Effective project management relies on clear information access and understanding how different tasks are connected to each other. Jira excels in this area, allowing you to customise issue fields and link related issues together, giving everyone on your team the context they need to work effectively.
However, as projects grow more complex, overseeing all moving parts while aligning teams and identifying potential blockers becomes challenging. The solution? Visualising your linked issues in Jira.
In this post, we'll explore how to link issues in Jira and leverage the power of visualising your linked issues in Jira to highlight dependencies and prioritise work more effectively.
By the end, you'll have the tools to enhance your project management capabilities and drive more successful outcomes.
Understanding issue linking and Jira issue link types
Linking issues in Jira is a powerful way to define relationships between issues, providing your team with valuable context about their work.
There are two core benefits of linking your issues, which are:
- More easily identify dependencies between issues.
- Improved tracking of related or duplicated work.
You can configure multiple different issue link types to fit your project's unique needs, making it a flexible, effective tool for project management.
It's worth highlighting upfront that this powerful feature needs to be activated by a Jira administrator. Once enabled, your team can create links between relevant issues on Jira. If you're not a Jira administrator, you'll need link issues permissions to start linking issues.
How to visualise linked issues in Jira and supercharge your project management
1. Visualise dependencies to determine the sequential order of work
Jira's default 'Blocks' link type allows you to visualise dependencies on your project roadmap. This feature helps your team identify potential blockers like scheduling conflicts and enables you to sequence your work items properly.
In the example below, we can see that epic PLAT-262 is blocking PLAT-263, so there's a scheduling conflict.
Knowing this, you can make updates to the items to sequence the work items in a more appropriate order.
The linked issues are also displayed on the issue details view, providing even more context:
This visibility is crucial for sprint-based work, as you'll be able to groom the backlog items effectively and avoid situations where your team misses dependencies and ends up working on the wrong ticket. Having insight into issue relationships across the entire project makes it easier to prioritise work efficiently.
While this is helpful, there are two key limitations to this approach:
- It's only visible on the project roadmap and issue view.
- It's limited to issues with associated epics.
Due to these limitations, many Jira users end up manually tracking issues with dependencies using Jira's advanced search function—but even then, you won't be able to see which issues are critical blockers, or which issues are being blocked.
To overcome these limitations, you can use Hierarchy for Jira.
Our Jira app allows you to effortlessly enhance your project visibility by visualising any specific issue dependency across all issue hierarchies, with a nested tree view.
As a Project Manager, this means you can quickly get a snapshot of everything happening within your team. The high-level view of your issue dependencies enables you to instantly spot blockers across your different projects.
Once you're using Hierarchy for Jira, you can configure the nested tree to see the linked issues in the hierarchy of Blocks.
Select the Blocks issue link, and select Hide default hierarchy.
From there, you can see the dependency from a high-level view to identify any potential blockers.
In this example, you can see that PLAT-288 blocks PLAT-285.
To complete PLAT-285, the correct work order sequence is to work on PLAT-288 first, then move on to PLAT-285.
This means you'll avoid a situation where you need to pivot from the wrong issue mid-work after realising that PLAT-285 has a critical blocker, all thanks to this issue dependency visibility.
2. Visualise related issues to prioritise more impactful work items
Besides dependency linkage, issue links also add extra context to your team's work. Many Jira users rely on custom issue links to connect multiple project types across Jira, as well as other similar complex use cases.
By combining Jira issue linking with advanced search, you can extract insightful data on specific queries such as:
- Tracking features and associated test cases.
- Reviewing all duplicated issues.
- Tracing all issues affected by a bug.
You can then use Hierarchy for Jira to visualise your linked issues from these filters in a hierarchical tree view.
On top of that, you can also track cross-project linking and prioritise work based on the requirements.
Here's an example:
Suppose you use Jira to manage customer tickets. In this case, Hierarchy for Jira helps you track issues across different projects in order to identify critical issues that need to be prioritised.
You can then bring in the linked issues from another project into the nested tree view using JQL search.
You can also save this filter for faster issue view configuration in the future.
Then, you can configure your nested tree view to show issues linked with causes by the related link type.
In this case, the link type is Problem/Incident.
For even better visibility when tracking bugs, you can set the top hierarchy level as Bug.
As we can see in the linked issue view, UT-9 causes five tickets, compared to the two in UT-8.
This visibility means we can quickly determine which work items require immediate attention or may be classed as more critical.
Another handy feature is the ability to switch the hierarchy link direction from inward to outward. This allows you to quickly find the underlying source of a customer ticket.
Once you know, you can get straight to work on resolving the problem.
Save custom views for versatile project tracking and report customisation
To supercharge your project visualisation with Hierarchy for Jira, you can easily save different custom views to see other hierarchical relationships.
Once your views are saved, you can instantly switch views to manage everything from dependency management, bug tracking, release management, weekly progress reports, and more with just a few clicks.
Our app also enables you to maintain your important column information in your tree view, such as 'Assignee', 'Status' and 'Story Point Progress'.
With easy access to customisable views tailored to your specific project requirements, you and your teams can enjoy enhanced efficiency and seamless collaboration.
Try Hierarchy for Jira to unlock project management success
Combining Jira's built-in features with the power of visualising your Jira linked issues thanks to Hierarchy for Jira is going to help you unlock newfound levels of project visibility and ensure your projects are always on track.
Whether you're a:
- Project manager looking to help your team focus on the right work at the right time.
- A developer who needs to know which team members are working on related issues
- A stakeholder who requires a specific progress report.
…you can easily access the view that suits your needs with Hierarchy for Jira.
If you're ready to get started, you can try it completely free with a 30-day trial!
Unlock enhanced project visibility with Hierarchy for Jira
Use Hierarchy for Jira to get a 360-degree view of all your Jira projects and tasks. Make smarter decisions, set project priorities, and forecast timelines with confidence.
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Written by
Wilson Ong
Product Marketing Manager
Wilson is the Product Marketing Manager for Hierarchy for Jira at Upscale. With a deep passion for being the voice of the customer and understanding market trends, he thrives on discovering new and innovative use cases for Hierarchy for Jira, empowering users and ensuring their success with our app.
Jira
Project Management
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