Is it possible to configure an issue in the hierarchy to have two parents?
Asked by Zara Hughes:

Is it possible to configure advanced roadmap issue hierarchy to allow an epic to have a choice of two parents issue types?

I want to be able to create plans for strategic cross team initiatives (where we have a issue type of 'initiative' as well as plan for tribes, where we are reporting on delivery of OKRs.

So Ideally I would want an epic to be able to have a parent of an initiatives or as an objective, depending on the plan/report I am building.


Answers:
author: Barnali Putatunda
body: Hi Zara,  

Yes, above Epic, you can map multiple issuetypes in same level of hierarchy. Then you can choose whether the epic to be a child of issuetype A or B. You can set it in Portfolio Issue hierarchy .  

![Screenshot 2023-02-23 134318.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/241935iFE9B3D82BFF01248/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "Screenshot 2023-02-23 134318.png")  

<br />

Regards,  
Barnali

comments: author: Bj?rn Gullander
body: You can only have one parent connection per issue though. You need to decide if it should be connected to an Initiative or an Objective.


author: Zara Hughes
body: Thanks very much for your help! I have managed to sort it.


author: Hannes Obweger - JXL for Jira
body: Hi [@Zara Hughes](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4176478)

as already mentioned, you can always only have one parent in Advanced Roadmaps - you can, however, have as many [issue links](https://support.atlassian.com/jira-cloud-administration/docs/configure-issue-linking/) as you want, e.g. using an *is parent of / is child of* issue link type.

As an issue link can represent any connection between two issues, Jira won't understand such links as a parent/child relationship. There are, however, a number of hierarchy-focused apps on the [Atlassian Marketplace](https://marketplace.atlassian.com/) that can do so. I can only speak for the app that my team is working on - [JXL for Jira](https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1224710?hosting=cloud&tab=overview&utm_source=atlassian-community&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=2279658) - but here, your use case would be trivial to implement. Pay attention to *epic WORK-142*:

![various-parents.gif](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/242057i1FE46BA1F09085B0/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "various-parents.gif")

Depending on your configuration, it's either a child of *OKR-1* , or a child of Initiative *WORK-161*. Our epic is connected to both of them via issue links.

For some more context, JXL is a full-fledged spreadsheet/table view that allows viewing, inline-editing, sorting, and filtering by all your issue fields, much like you'd do in e.g. Excel or Google Sheets. It also comes with a number of advanced features, including the support for configurable issue hierarchies, sum-ups, or conditional formatting.

As mentioned above, there may be other apps that can help with that, too. You may already know that you can trial any app for free for 1 month, and depending on the size of your size, it may be free forever. So if an app is an option for your, perhaps try a few and see which works best for you.

Hope this helps,

Best,

Hannes

comments: author: Zara Hughes
body: Thanks very much for your support Hannes, this is very helpful.


author: Margo Sakova - OKR Board for Jira by Oboard
body: Hi [@Zara Hughes](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4176478)   

Is the two-parent approach to the issue hierarchy working out for you?  

I've just covered some alternatives like [Jira OKRs setup](https://medium.com/oboard-okr-software/okr-jira-0ebb8d868bf3?utm_source=atlassian-community&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=answers) in Product Discovery, within a custom cascading field, and a couple of others. Would love to hear your thoughts!


Tags: advanced-roadmaps

cloud