What is the use for the new HierarchyLevel in JQL

[Vaishali Patil]

What is the benefit of using hierarchy level? I can get the same result set by just picking the issue type so isn't 

heirarchylevel=1 equivalent to issuetype=epic?

It doesn't allow me to say find all subtasks of an epic

[Anne Jang]

Hi Vaishali

The hierarchy level JQL would be beneficial if you have multiple issuetypes that you want to search on. If for example if you use Jira Software and want to search for all issues on the story level e.g. Bug, Story, Task, you can use the hierarchy level instead of listing each of the issuetypes.

As mentioned by others, it was designed to be used together with custom hierarchy levels. At the moment you can only search on subtask, story and epic level but in the future, we'll introduce the ability to search custom hierarchy levels.

[John Funk]

Hi Vaishali,

In my opinion, it is mainly to assist with creating Advanced Roadmaps using the Premium subscription in Jira. 

[Anne Saunders]

It's for custom hierarchy levels - in case you create something new or rename the epic level, it gives you an agnostic way to get whatever is at hierarchy level. This article may help:

https://confluence.atlassian.com/jirasoftwareserver/configure-your-jira-software-instance-1044784156.html#ConfigureyourJiraSoftwareinstanceforAdvancedRoadmaps-CustomHierarchyLevelsARJ

[Abel Lineberger]

But you cannot actually pull in any issue of a higher level than an epic ( I do have Advance Roadmaps enabled so I have two levels above epic).  There is no option for HierarchyLevel = 2 or HierarchyLevel =3 or Hierarchy level > 1.

[Joseph Chung Yin]

@Vaishali Patil -

The hierarchy setup is provided to support Advanced Roadmap for Jira component, it gives you the ability to extend the structure to create parent issue types above the ootb Epic >> Story >> Subtask.

It doesn't have anything to do with JQL.  Lastly, Subtasks of Epic versus Child tasks of Epic are two different things.

Best, Joseph Chung Yin

Jira/JSM Functional Lead, Global Infrastructure Applications Team

Viasat Inc.

[Vaishali Patil]

from the release notes:

Filter issues in JQL by hierarchy level
Add a filter to your JQL query to only show issues of a certain hierarchy level. This field uses numbers that correlate to hierarchy levels. Currently, this field doesn’t support custom hierarchy levels made in Advanced Roadmaps.

[Joseph Chung Yin]

Ok.  Your update makes more sense now.  The usage of this JQL field (heirarchylevel) - https://support.atlassian.com/jira-software-cloud/docs/advanced-search-reference-jql-fields/#Hierarchy-level

is simply provide you with another way to getting issues instead of looking for issue based on issue type names but using the level instead.

This is only available for Jira Cloud env.

Best, Joseph

[Abel Lineberger]

Not sure about this benefiting Advanced Roadmaps, as it does not appear to currently recognize levels above "1 - Epic", so you cannot currently use it to access issuetypes that are parents to Epics.  That limits its functionality as far as AR is concerned.  

[Chris DeMattio]

@Abel Lineberger , I can't comment on the exact functionality we are discussing, but I do want to say that my organization uses Advanced Roadmaps and we have 2 levels above Epic, so it is possible.

[Vaishali Patil]

@Abel Lineberger Also since you can query using issuetype in combination with EpicLink or Parent link I dont see the use of HeirarchyLevel. hence my original question. Maybe there are usecases that I cannot think of

[Abel Lineberger]

@Vaishali Patil EpicLink and ParentLink both require elaboration with the specific key of the hierarchical issue.  Hierarchylevel returns all issues within that level of your hierarchy, so a query of hierarchylevel=1 returns all epics within your instance, hierarchylevel=1 and statuscategory="In Progress" returns all epics that are neither done nor not started, etc.  Epiclink returns all issues that are within an epic - it is descendant focused.  ParentLink is the same but can take you up to what would now be considered Hierarchy Level 2 or greater.