Make initiative as a parent issue for tasks

[Yi Meng]

Hi there,

I'm using Jira Cloud. And I've configured my issue hierarchy to make initiative as the top issue type. So, the hierarchy is:

1. Initiative
2. Epic
3. Story/task
4. Sub-task

And I've created a project for top-down planning. In this project, I only have 2 issue types, Initiative and task. My goal is to track initiative and all its related work by using tasks. But I found that I can't assign my initiative as parent for tasks. Consequently, I can't make them shown as expected in the plans as well. Please note that these tasks are not Epics. They are tracking work related to initiative before creating an Epic. 

Anyone knows how to configure it to show parent-child relationship between Initiative and tasks?

[Amy Napier · Accepted solution]

I don't believe that you skip levels in the hierarchy like that when looking at Parent/Child relationships. But you could create a Sub-Task inside the initiative for those steps you need to take before you create an epic. I can't speak to how that would affect how items appear in your plans without know more about how your plan is structured. 

[Trudy Claspill]

Hello @Yi Meng 

I can confirm that what @Amy Napier says is correct. You cannot skip levels in the hierarchy to set the parent of an issue.

An issue's parent can only be set to an issue type that is directly above it in the hierarchy.

And while technically you can go straight to an Initiative (in your hierarchy) and add a Sub-task to it, those sub-tasks will not show up in the Advanced Roadmaps timeline.

[Yi Meng]

Yes, I tried to create sub-task under an initiative. It works fine in the board but the sub-tasks will be considered as issues without parent since they're not connected to any Epics. 

I can accept it as it works in my board. But I still think it's a good idea to make it possible to connect initiative and task as parent-child especially in my case there is no Epic at all. 

Thank you @Amy Napier  and @Trudy Claspill . This is helpful. 

[Trudy Claspill]

There is a change request to which you can add your vote/comments, @Yi Meng 

https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JSWCLOUD-25594

[Amy Napier]

@Yi Meng Something else to consider....make an epic to house your tasks. We do this for enabler or infrastructure type needs that are not features. So you could have Initiative A, then an epic called "Initiative A Tasks" and put your tasks there. They would show on your plan that way. 

[Yi Meng]

@Amy Napier Thanks. I thought about this workaround as well. But I still think it makes sense to connect issue types such as initiative and task without Epic in between if Jira allows to create more hierarchy now. 

I voted in the change request. Hopefully they could look into it in the coming years :)

[Yi Meng]

One reason I want to avoid using Epic is because Epics will be visible for all project once created. I don't want to confuse people when they create a story and try to find related Epics from the drop-down list.