Gantt Suite for Jira v 2.1.x: Additional hierarchy level configuration (Initiative, Program, Portfolio, etc.)

Owned by Mariia Korolishyna
Sept 30, 2022
2 min read

By default, Jira presents the following hierarchy levels:

  • Epic

  • Story / Task

  • Sub-task

Once you created a Gantt chart, you’ll be able to group the tasks by the hierarchy levels mentioned above, assuming that you Jira projects support the next issue types: Epic, Story, Task, and Sub-Task, of course.

Extra hierarchy levels can be added to the Gantt chart by creating additional issue types in Jira project(s) and selecting them as hierarchy levels.

For instance, let’s say, you want to add three additional hierarchy levels, Initiative, Program and Portfolio, above Epic. In such case, you might want to create a separate project in Jira. Then, create the corresponding issue types in Jira and update the screens of the “hierarchy“ project you’ve just created.

Please don’t forget to add the created project that has the required issue types to the chart configuration.

Once it is done, the issue types Initiative, Program and Portfolio will be accessible as hierarchy levels, on your Gantt chart.

In order for the Gantt chart hierarchy to work correctly, please make sure that newly added hierarchy levels are linked. It can be done either by a drag-and-drop, in an initial chart view, or in Jira, by using such hierarchy links as ”is parent of“ or “is child of“.

As result, you’ll be able to create the hierarchy for the tasks:

For instance, you can create the next hierarchy/grouping:

Hierarchy: Program > Hierarchy: Initiative > Sprint > Epic Link

Note that hierarchy levels, Program and Initiative, precede the grouping levels, Sprint and Epic Link.

In this case, you can manually drag-and-drop the sprint groups to their initiative groups to achieve the desired task order.

Should you want to see only the architectural structure of your Gantt chart, without numerous tasks. you can filter the tasks on your chart by issue type:

As result, the Gantt chart will display the information you might want to concentrate on, and skip the details.