Find parents issues which contains subtasks with label

Question

I have a JIRA project and some of my tasks contains subtasks with lasbels "needDesign".

Is it possible to find all parent tasks which contains subtasks with that label?

(I use ondemand jira version)

Answer 1

Jira JQL doesn't not provide this out of the box, however there are many add-ons that extend JQL to allow this.

I would normally suggest you install the Script Runner add-on (see https://marketplace.atlassian.com/plugins/com.onresolve.jira.groovy.groovyrunner) as it contains many useful built-in functions to perform searches in JQL like the one you are asking about.

The particular function for this add-o you want to use is:

parentsOf(Subquery) - Returns the parents of issues specified by the subquery.

issueFunction in parentsOf("labels in (needDesign)")

Unfortunately you stated you are using ondemand and this add-on is not available for ondemand currently.

Your options as far as I see is to:

• code a function using the REST API (requires programming skills search for subtasks then get the parent id)
• periodically review the ondemand add-ons in the Jira marketplace for updated add-ons that extend JQL (I didn't seen any that do what you need)
• contact the Script Runner add-on owner and/or Jira and request this functionality.

This type of subquery is so fundamental for anyone using subtasks I am surprised that there isn't a bundled solution for this, perhaps it is a potential performance issue for the ondemand offering.

I know that is not what you want to hear but hope that answers your question.