By Robert Leitch on August 21, 2013
If you've been following my antics here at ALM Works, you'll know that I recently hit a dead end when I wanted more than one level of issue nesting in JIRA. Rumor has it that Structure is the way to get round this problem.
So what is Structure and why is it awesome?
In case you're not already familiar with Structure, let's take a moment to reflect on what it actually is and why it's so awesome.
Not pictured: what Structure actually is
Structure is essentially an interface + data layer that sits on top of JIRA and adds some specific capabilities for organizing issues and visualizing projects.
By far the grooviest capability that Structure adds to JIRA has to be the support for unlimited hierarchies of issues. In a bare JIRA setup, we are restricted to issues with one level of sub-tasks. With Structure, we can create endless hierarchies of issues, enabling projects to be broken down to any level of granularity.
The perfect tool for evil masterminds
As I said, Structure is a layer atop JIRA. The hierarchical issues in a Structure are ordinary JIRA issues and as such they exist purely within JIRA, while the hierarchical relationship is stored and handled exclusively by Structure. So what does a Structured project look like in JIRA?
Just a list of JIRA issues
In this respect, Structure does absolutely nothing untoward with your JIRA issues – it just displays them in an organized view and aggregates certain values. Also, because Structure is not constrained to the logical boundaries of a JIRA project, it can do this with issues from any number of separate projects, which I'm sure is a bonus in real-life applications.
Structure is more than just an issue container
The guys at ALM Works have put a whole load of caffeine and cookies into making the Structure interface smooth, slick and awesomely useable. To the extent that you might never want to deal with an issue outside of Structure ever again.
We get the smartest drag-and-drop I've ever seen in a browser-based interface, together with nifty search, filtering, customizable column layouts, user-definable views, issue cloning and a whole load more great stuff. We also get pretty comprehensive inline editing capabilities to make issue entry and editing quick and easy, as well as great ways to visualize projects.
On first impression, Structure seems to be a natural extension to JIRA that gives it the kind of polished, user-oriented interface I've grown accustomed to seeing in high-quality web applications. Now if you'll excuse me, I want to go play with it some more.
Stay tuned for the next blog installments, where I'll be looking at the Structure interface and its capabilities in more detail.
Meanwhile, if you don't already have Structure, you can play with an online Structure demo or download and install a free evaluation in your own JIRA instance.
Hierarchical issues for great project management in Jira
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