Configuring issue linking
As a Jira administrator, you can activate issue linking to let your team create links between relevant issues across all Jira applications on your site. Note that all users must have the Link Issues permission before they can link issues.
Adding, editing, and deleting a link type
Clone link types:
We don't recommend editing or deleting clone link types, as they are used to automatically link cloned issues.
Select
> Issues.- Click Issue Linking.
- Fill in the form below the existing issue links. You can edit the name, outward description, and inward description at any time.
- Click Add.
When you delete a link type, you'll have the option of changing the link (for example, from "Relates" to "Duplicates") or removing all related links.
Link types and JQL search
Jira issue link types have the following properties:
- Name: The title for the link type
- Outward description: The description of how an issue affects other issues
- Inward description: The description of how an issue is affected by other issues
For example, a link type could have the following properties:
- Name: Problem/Incident
- Outward description: causes
- Inward description: is caused by
When searching issueLinkType, Jira searches all three properties. This can mean you're unable to isolate issues with a specific inward or outward description if the link type's name and either of the descriptions are the same. This is the case for the default "Blocks" link type, where the name and outward description are "blocks".
If you need to be able to search specifically for issues with an outward description of "blocks", for example, you would need to change the name of the link type to something else. Be aware, this may change the issues returned for existing JQL queries.
To search specifically for issues with the "blocks" outward description:
- Find the Blocks link type and choose Edit
- Change the name to something else (Blocking, for example)
- Choose Update
Deactivating issue linking
Select
> Issues.- Click Issue Linking.
- A status message indicates whether issue linking is enabled. If issue linking is enabled, click the Deactivate button. The Issue Linking page reloads, stating that linking is disabled.
Configuring the order of linked issues
You can control the order that linked issues are displayed in the Issue Links section by editing the value of the jira.view.issue.links.sort.order property.
- Choose > System
- In General configuration, click Advanced Settings.
- Click the jira.view.issue.links.sort.order value to edit it. Separate the 'Key', 'type', 'status', 'priority' and 'resolution' values with commas.
You can't do this in the new Jira issue view just yet. Watch The new Jira issue view to get updates about new features we're shipping.