Introducing the new Parent field in company-managed projects

[#1]

Update 18th January 2024:

Hi all,

An update to this rollout. (Click here to learn more about the different release tracks)

• This has been rolled out to all customers in the Continuous track
• This has been rolled out to all customers in the Sandbox Preview track
• This will be rolled out to all customers in Bundled Track on February 13th

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[The below article is for Jira Software cloud only]

👋 Hi Jira Community!

Over the past year, we’ve been providing updates around renaming epics in your company-managed projects.

When we first announced this work, we let you know that we were improving the way you associate epics with your bugs, stories and tasks in Jira by:

• replacing the existing Epic link and Parent link fields with the Parent field in the issue view

• adding the Add parent feature seen in team-managed projects to the company-managed issue view

• replacing the Epic link and Parent link fields with the Parent field when creating new issues

• replacing the Epic link and Parent link fields with the Parent field when creating new workflow transitions

• extending the parent JQL function to incorporate the functionality of the epic link, parent link and parentEpic functions.

In this post, we’ll outline what these updates include and any steps you should take to prepare for these changes.

New Parent field in the issue view

The Epic link and Parent link fields on the issue view will soon be replaced by a single Parent field.

We also heard from you that adding epics to issues can sometimes be difficult, so we’re adding the ability to add a parent directly from your issue’s breadcrumb, consistent with how you work in team-managed projects.

You’ll also be able to add a parent from the Actions (...) menu or using keyboard shortcuts.

In Jira Software Premium, the Parent link will also move to the breadcrumb – you’ll no longer need to configure the issue view for this to appear.

What should I do to prepare?

You won’t need to do anything in Jira to prepare for this particular update.

If your issue view includes the Epic link or Parent link fields, we will automatically replace these fields and migrate any existing values to the new Parent field.

New Parent field in issue create

When creating new issues in Jira, the Epic link and Parent link fields will be replaced by a single Parent field.

What should I do to prepare?

You won’t need to do anything in Jira to prepare for this particular update.

If your issue create layout includes the Epic link or Parent link fields, we will automatically replace these fields with the new Parent field.

New Parent field in the workflow editor

When creating new workflow transitions in Jira, the Epic link and Parent link fields will be replaced by the Parent field in the workflow editor.

What should I do to prepare?

You won’t need to do anything to prepare for this particular update.

Any existing use of Epic link and Parent link in your workflow transitions will continue to work after this update, however new workflow transitions will not be able to use the Epic link and Parent link fields and should use the Parent field instead.

Updates to the Parent JQL function

To reflect these updates, we’re also making some small changes to our JQL functions. The parent JQL function will extend to incorporate the functionality of the epic link, parent link and parentEpic functions.

While these functions will continue to work in your existing JQL searches, you’ll no longer be able to use them in new searches. Instead, teams should begin using the parent JQL function.

What should I do to prepare?

The majority of saved searches and JQL queries (including JQL-backed boards) will continue to show the same results when this update rolls out – you won’t need to do anything to prepare.

In some cases, however, the results of JQL queries that include the parent JQL function may show more results than they previously did. This may impact your existing saved filters if you’re using:

• parent is empty

• parent is not empty

• parent = xyz

• parent != xyz

• parent in (xyz, abc)

• parent not in (xyz, abc)

NOTE: This update will only affect issues in company-managed projects. Issues in team-managed projects will not be affected.

For more information on how this might impact you and our recommended solutions, view our documentation.

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What's next

We'll begin progressively rolling out these changes later this year. We will keep you updated closer to the release.

If you have any questions or feedback on these updates, let us know in the comments below. Thanks!

[Ravi Sagar _Sparxsys_]

Hi @Irene 

Thanks for the update. Will there be any notification to the site admins before this is rolled out?

Ravi

[Irene]

Hi @Ravi Sagar _Sparxsys_ , Besides the community posts, there will be a number of in-product messaging that we will show to users & admins when they are performing actions that related to this. This shall also be included in the Jira Software newsletter that is sent to admins. 

[Rick Olson]

Will automation rules also be taken care of automatically? If not, at what point can I update automation rules so they continue to run correctly when the above changes are installed for our company?

[Trudy Claspill]

Is this going to impact third party apps that provide functionality that works currently based on the Epic Link field? For example the Adaptavist Enhanced Search app has an epicsOf() function that returns the parent Epics of issues in the query within the parentheses. That function currently can't return Epics in Team Managed projects.

Will that function cease to work for Company Managed projects also?

[Rick Olson]

We use ScriptRunner Enhanced Search, as well, and I have the same concern.

[Dean Leaso]

I second this....Will automation rules also be taken care of automatically? If not, at what point can I update automation rules so they continue to run correctly when the above changes are installed for our company?

[Michaël Droz-dit-Busset]

Hi, what about the API fields ?

[Ben Romberg - codefortynine]

Hello @Irene

Thanks for the heads-up! Please also consider announcing any changes to JQL or other APIs on the developer community. Quite a lot of apps utilize JQL and will need to adjust if anything changes, e.g. `parent` previously only returned issues for subtask-hierarchies in company-managed projects, and might need to be adjusted to account for the addition of Epic/Parent link hierarchies.

[Sarathi Chatterjee]

Using scriptunner and epicsOf() - how will that be impacted  ? 

[Peter Fjelsten]

JQL:

Parent = Epic-Key 

will still find both child main issues and their sub-tasks?

[M Carolyn Eckstein]

Are Epics going away completely? When we start a new project, we create an Epic for each phase or deliverable we sold to our client in the SOW. Are these now going to be called "Parents"? Just curious – our use and understanding of anything I'd refer to as a "Parent" in Jira was generally limited to a Parent-ticket (Task or Story) with subtasks created (Child tickets).

Using Epic to represent a "Parent" seems a little odd, or maybe confusing with parent/child tickets already in use with Tasks/Subtasks. For us, Epics have serve more as a category to label each ticket / issue (e.g., a task for the eCommerce category of this project, a task for the Design phase of the project, etc.). 

[Trudy Claspill]

@M Carolyn Eckstein 

Welcome to the Atlassian community.

If you look at the issue details for an Epic type of issue, you see the issues that are in/under the Epic listed in a group labeled "Child Issues". From Jira's perspective there has always been a parent/child relationship between the Epic and the issue "in" the Epic.

Epics are not going away. What is changing is eliminating the differences in how the relationship between and Epic and its child issues is recorded and accessed. This was handled differently between Company Managed projects and Team Managed projects. Company Managed projects used the "Epic Link" field in the child issue to track the related Epic. Team Managed projects used the "Parent Link" field. 

The change is to the field being used. Epics will still be called "Epics". You can still use them in the same way for "categorizing" your issues.

[Tom Holden]

Will we be able to create links for Story Issue types like we can with Epics using this new field? This is the missing element for us in the use of the Epic--Story--Task hierarchy. Sub-tasks don't work well for us.

Thanks.

[Trudy Claspill]

@Tom Holden 

Can you elaborate on how Sub-tasks don't work well for you, and what functionality exactly you are asking about having for Stories (standard issue types) that is available now only for Epics?

[Areen Rahhal]

Can the parent be any issue type , alowing us to have this Hirarichy : Epic -> Feature-> Story -> SubTask 

[Kristján Geir Mathiesen]

Hi @Irene Looking forward to seeing your answers to these questions.

thanks, KGM

[Karen Aiken]

Looking forward to the more consistent experience across issue types. Curious as to how it will impact subtasks of children (per @Peter Fjelsten's question above)

Will we be able to add child issues directly from any issue type configured as a parent - addressing this request?
https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JSWCLOUD-17573?filter=115121

And will we be able to configure the display of those child issues in the parent issue view (including things like due date in the table, for example) - addressing this request?https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRACLOUD-70206?filter=115121

[Mayuresh Athalekar]

When this is going to come in effect ?

[Jesse Gray]

Quality matters on this one, rooting for Atlassian to roll this out smooth and do the whole job.  This will reduce a ton of confusion for my teams, really looking forward to this. 

[Trudy Claspill]

@Irene 

Are built-in Jira Dashboard gadgets going to be updated along with this change?

For example, the Pie Chart gadget supports selecting "Epic Link" for the statistic type, and that works for Company Managed projects but does not work for showing Team Managed project data per Epic. The gadget doesn't currently support a statistic option for showing Team Managed project data per Epic. The same is true for the Two Dimensional Filter Statistics gadget.

Will the gadgets be updated to allow selecting the Parent field and then work for showing data per Epic for both Company and Team Managed projects?

Is there a change request we can watch to receive updates on the gadget changes?

[Colton_Kosicek]

@Irene when is this being planned to be rolled out? is their a release package or something we can watch to see when this is rolling out.  This "Epic Link" field remaining in our ecosystem is very disruptive to our end users and the new JQL filters will be very disruptive for us.

[Maria Emilia Sosa]

Hi @Irene :)
Thank you for the update! Do you know if the new Parent Field will remain LOCKED as the Epic-Link field is? My team would like to make this field required when creating an issue but it's currently not possible because it is locked.

[S_ Francoeur]

Hi @Irene. Currenly, the Jira Filter macro in a Confluence page renders the Parent column cells as the issue's Type (icon) and Summary field (together as a single clickable hyperlink) and the Epic Link column cells as the Epic Name of the parent Epic, untruncated but in ALL CAPS in a (clickable) lozenge.

Are there any plans to visually render the Parent field the same way as the Epic Link field is currently rendered (well, at least for Epics that is) or will both fields continue to be supported in the macro?

 Thank you!

PS : For those, like me, who would rather see the case of Jira text fields preserved, please vote for :

• [CONFCLOUD-34016] JIRA Issues Macro should respect the case of custom JIRA Fields
• [CONFCLOUD-71835] Jira macro does not display the letter case of the field name accurately
• [CONFSERVER-38124] jiraissues macro not preserving the case of JIRA field names

PPS : And for more elaborate breadcrumbs :

• [JRACLOUD-16589] When viewing a sub-task in a filter the parent is listed as a small FOO-123 above it. That FOO-123 should also have the Summary listed next to it
• [JRACLOUD-76578] Display parent epic's summary and icon in breadcrumbs of child issue / subtask

[Irene]

@Rick Olson , @Dean Leaso - apology for the late reply. Regarding automation: Existing automation will work as normal. There is no impact to them. However going forward, we recommend using the new Parent field where possible and will be displaying in-product notes to suggest users to not use the old fields. 

[Rick Olson]

Irene -- Thanks for the information. Much appreciated!