Summary

The Parent Link is a bundled and locked custom field provided by Advanced Roadmaps (previous Portfolio for Jira and now bundled into Jira Software Data Center since 8.15)

This custom field is, by default, not present in any screen, and only visible through Roadmap Plans. This article suggest best-practices on configuring this field on screens for ease of use and to spot inconsistent links if they happen to exist.

Environment

Any version of Jira Software Data Center or Server with Advanced Roadmaps (bundled or installed as an app).

Solution

Jira Issue Type Screen Schemes allow each Project to have different Screens for Creating, Editing and Viewing each Issue Type.

Ideally, Admins should have different Screens for each of these operations for more granular customization, but often reuse the same screen on two or all operations for ease of maintenance.

Summary

Let's work with an example Hierarchy:

Hierarchy	Issue types	Parent Link on Create	Parent Link on Edit Screen	Parent Link on View Screen
Initiative	Initiative
Theme	Theme
Epic	Epic
Story	Story, Bug, Task, etc
Subtask	All subtask issue types

The Parent Link custom field only makes sense for the Theme and Epic issue types because:

• Initiative (top Hierarchy) can't be linked to any other issue type. Having the Parent Link field editable will always show an empty dropdown for selection.
• Story: Stories can't have Parent Links because they're linked to Epic Through Epic Links — except if you have another Issue Type together with Epics in the "Epic level". Only on this case Stories can use the Parent Link.
• Subtasks: Subtask issue types are linked through another specific link type, neither Parent Link not Epic Link.

Parent Links could be added to the Create and Edit screens where it shows — but this may cause confusion to end-users ads the field won't work properly.

Why always view

Jira doesn't wipe out the Parent Link data if an Issue is moved to another Issue Type (JSWSERVER-24811) — instead, it flags the Parent Link field with a warning sign indicating it's an invalid relationship. This is only visible on Roadmaps Plans and in Jira only if the Parent Link field is present in the View screen.

As Jira only displays custom fields that have any value set (and hides from the View screen the ones that are empty), having the Parent Link on the View Screen is just beneficial.

Fixing invalid Parent Links

To fix the Parent Link if it's showing up invalid on a View screen, you'd need to have it on the respective issue type Edit Screen too or fix it through a Roadmaps Plan.

If this situation's too often (usually when lots of Move Issue operations are performed or when issue types are changed often), you may add the Parent Link to the Edit Screen (thus the on the summary above). In order to avoid confusion, you could add it in a separate tab on the Edit Screen.

You may also rely on these two other KB articles if you're observing invalid Parent Links too often:

• Automation For Jira - How to clear the Parent Link field when an issue is moved to a new type
• Searching for child or parent Issues using JQL functions report wrong results in Jira

And this is the Issue tracked:

JPOSERVER-2059 - Getting issue details... STATUS