Family of Issues
Arranging issues in a hierarchy brings up several terms that we're using in Structure plugin and in the documentation:
Essential Terms
Parent and Child Issue | Intuitively, we call an issue that is one level below, a child issue, and the issue that is one level above it - a parent issue. Likewise we can call issues grandchild and grandparent if they are two levels apart, though this is rarely needed. Sometimes we call all issues that are under a specific issue "children issues", regardless of their hierarchy level. |
Sub-issue | Same as Child Issue |
Subtask | This is a specific term used by JIRA, a special category of issue types. We don't call sub-issues subtasks or vice versa, to avoid confusion. Subtasks still can be used along with the Structure plugin. |
Structure Widget | A tool for viewing and editing Structure. Structure widget is displayed on Structure Board, on Issue View screen and in other places. |
Structure Board | A separately presented Structure Widget, which can accept issues from Search Results and other sources, show them all together and allows arranging them in a hierarchy. |
Rarely Used Terms
Root Issue | Top-level issue that has no parent (it may or may not have children) |
Standalone Issue | A root issue that has no children – it's on its own. All issues created before Structure is installed are standalone. |
Family of Issues | A collection of issues where every issue has the same Root Issue – that is, every issue is a child (of any level) of a single issue |
Which Issue Can Be a Child of this Issue?
The answer is any. As long as it belongs to a project that has structure enabled.
- You can make issues of any type (including subtasks) to be children or a parent.
- A child issue may be from a different project.
- A child issue may have any type or status.
- A child issue may have a different security level. (It won't be seen by users not allowed to see it.)