Creating and linking issues

This page refers to Portfolio classic plans. If you are currently running Portfolio 2.0, please check this link to access the latest page version.

Portfolio for Jira allows you to work directly on your Jira issues thanks to the one-to-one linking feature and it also support flexible planning setups for larger teams' structures. For example, you can create a single roadmap for different teams within the same plan even if those teams are represented in different Jira projects. 

In the following section you'll learn about using the issue linking feature and how to update links for your plan and projects. 

Creating and linking to a new issue

  1. Select your plan and go to Backlog > Issue Link column. If you can't see the column, go to  and check Issue Link to make the column show up in the backlog view.

  2. Select the epic or initiative that you want to link and click in the Issue Link column.

  3. Select Create and link new issue.
  4. As described above in scenario 5 of the linking concepts, you can choose to create and link separate issues per stage. As can be seen in the example, a suffix with the stage name is automatically added to the issue summary in order to distinguish the linked items. 
  5. Configure the issue details in the new screen and select Create and link Issues once you're ready.
  6. You can see now the new issue linked to the backlog item that you selected previously.

Configuring advanced options

If you link to a project that is not configured to use Jira, you can select the issue types for both epics and stories. Since there is no predefined concept for how to keep the parent/child relationship between epics and stories, you can choose to add a link between these two. The relation type can be selected in the advanced options at the bottom of the dialog, see Linking Issues in the documentation for more information.

  1. Select your plan and go to Backlog > Issue Link column. If you can't see the column go to   and check Issue Link to make the column show up in the backlog view.

  2. Select the epic or initiative that you want to link and click in the Issue Link column.

  3. Select Create and link new issue > Advanced Options.

    Establish initiative/epic relationshipsDefines the relationship between the two items in the Jira application.
    Establish dependency relationshipsDefines the parent - children relationship between the items.
  4. You can unlink issues by going to the Issue link drop down list and select the X next to the issue link name.

     

How to link to a single project

Linking to a single project

The graphics below depict some different scenarios for linking between Jira Portfolio, and your Jira project(s).  

The simplest link between plan and project is a direct one-to-one link between a plan and a project. If you have all of your data in one Jira project, just link every item to exactly one issue in Jira Portfolio and keep the issue summary and description in sync bi-directionally. For more information on synchronizing data 

Scenario 1 - Fully synchronised with one Jira project

How to link existing issues

How to link to existing issues

Linking existing issues may be necessary in the case when you have existing Jira issues, and you already have issues in your plan.  In this case, you want to keep the data in your plan's backlog (e.g. the estimates), but you also want to keep the Jira issue as is (e.g. because it already has subtasks). 

    1. In the plan backlog, locate the issue and click the the Issue Link column. 
    2. Select Link existing issue
    3. Select a project you want to link to, and then use text search to find the issue within the project. 


To create separate links for different stages of work, select the checkbox below the project selector. 

How to link to multiple projects

How to link to multiple projects

A single plan can also be linked to epics and stories in multiple projects. There are two ways to accomplish this.  You can link a single epic/initiative in your plan to an epic/initiative in a single project (with multi-linking "off") or link a single epic/initiative in your plan to epics in multiple projects (with multi-linking "on"). See Synchronization settings for more information on setting up multi-linking.  See the table below for some restrictions when using multi-linking.
 

Multi-linkingPlan Epic can link to:Project Epics can link to:
OnSingle link to epics in multiple projectsStories within that project
OffSingle link to one epic in a single projectStories in multiple projects

 

Scenario 2 shows shows a structure where 2 teams are working on issues in 2 separate projects. When planning, you may want to plan for both teams in one place. With multi-linking turned on, teams can work on separate stories in different projects and still be managed in the same plan. In this scenario, a plan epic is linked to epics in two different projects and teams A and B can work on stories within each of those projects as long as the stories are contained within the same project as their parent epics.
 

Scenario 2 Multi-linking ON

With multi-linking turned off, individual epics and initiatives can be assigned to a single epic or initiative in a single plan.  However, the epics in the projects can contain stories contained in other projects (scenario 3).
 

Scenario 3 Multi-linking off

Project epics don't necessarily need to be contained within a project with your stories.  Some teams use a separate project for tracking all epics. When multi-linking is off, you can have all of your epics represented in a separate Jira project (Project 3) that links to stories in your other projects (scenario 4). 
 

How to link to stages

How to link stages

It is also possible to link directly to stories that represent different stages of work.  Scenario 5 shows an extension of the previous scenarios: It is possible to establish separate links by stage of work; this allows you to:

    • Track status and progress by assigning a task to stages of work on each work item.
    • Simplify planning in case of sprint/iteration-based work.  When planning for capacities for both story writing and implementation, story writing should not be planned to take place in the same sprint as implementation. Having separate stories for each stage makes it easier to assign them to different sprints.
       

Scenario 5 - Stage Links

These scenarios are just examples, and can be combined and extended. For instance, you can link to multiple projects, and also use stage-level links at the same time.

How to publish updates to linked projects

Update issues in projects

Portfolio for Jira gives you the ability to update linked issues so that you can publish your most recent changes in your plan back to the actual Jira issues in your project. This allows you to try out different planning scenarios, prioritize and calculate the plan, and once this is completed, update the Jira issues accordingly. 

  1. Select Plan > Apply updates to project(s)


  2. Select all of the fields you would like to update in your project issues. 
  3. Select Keep existing or Replace existing depending on if you want to keep or overwrite the selected field in your project with changes from your plan. 
  4. Select Update.  

Update linked elements

Select which level(s) of the hierarchy to apply updates to (initiatives, epics, stories). In addition, you can select to update the versions of linked elements as well.  
 

Issue Field
Description
EstimatesUpdates the original (and if applicable, remaining) estimate based on the latest estimate in the plan.
AssigneeAssigns the issue directly to the assigned team member. This only works if a story is assigned to a single person. If the issue is assigned to multiple people or a team, it will not update in the project.  
SummaryUpdates the issue summary based on the summary in the plan.
DescriptionUpdates the issue description based on the description in the plan.
Due DateSets the issues' due date to the calculated end date.
Fix versionsUpdates the fix version in the project based on the release that is set in the plan.
Issue links

Select to update any issue links and configure how to handle existing issue links. You can also select an issue link type, which are defined in your Jira project.



Version fields
Description
Start dateReplace the start date in your linked project with the start date in your plan.
End dateReplace the end date in your linked project with the end date in your plan.
Version nameReplace the version name in your linked project with the version name for the issue in your plan.

 

 

Last modified on Dec 14, 2018

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