Dependency Map Manual (Jira Cloud)

Introduction

Dependency Map is a tool for analyzing dependencies and other relationships between issues in your Jira projects. You can highlight different aspects of your project by configuring Dependency Map to use different link types, Jira fields, and diagram layouts.

Since the issues that are shown in your maps are fetched using standard Jira filters, you can choose precisely what to include and what to leave out.

Getting started

After Dependency Map has been installed, a new menu item (“Dependency Map”) will become visible in App menu of Jira and in the Project sidebar.

Click “Dependency Map” to open the start page, which lists all available Dependency Maps.

To open an existing map, click the entry in the list of available maps.

Click “Create Dependency Map” to create a new map.

The visibility of a dependency map is the same as the filter it is based on. So if you create a map based on a public filter, for example, then that map will be visible to all users on your Jira server. To limit the availability of a dependency map to a specific set of users or user groups, set the availability of the filter accordingly.

Creating a map

To create a map, click “Create Dependency Map” on the start page. This opens an empty diagram page, with the configuration slide-in visible on the right hand side.

Select a Jira issue filter in the “Filter” dropdown. Type parts of the issue filter name to search for matching issue filters.

As soon as a filter is selected, the diagram will render displaying the issues.

Enter a name in “Map name” and click “Save” to save the map.

To modify the Jira fields that are used for the rows and columns, select the wanted field in the “Columns field” and “Rows field” dropdowns. You can leave either both or one of the Columns or Rows fields empty to get a map with the issues layed out in an “ungrouped” layout.

To modify the content displayed in the issue boxes, add/remove fields in the “Issue content” entry.

Use the “Issue color field” to control which Jira field is used for coloring of the issue boxes in the map.

Configuring maps

To modify the configuration of a map, open the configuration pane on the right hand side of the map, either by clicking on the button (<) or just hovering over the slid-in. Clicking the (<) button makes the configuration slide-in stay open, otherwise it will be automatically hidden when moving the pointer away from it.

The diagram will be updated automatically when you change the configuration settings. This allows you to directly review your changes. To save the changes, click “Save” or click “Revert” to revert to the saved configuration.

Layouts

Maps can have different layouts. The layouts are selected by the fields in the Column and Row fields. If you leave both empty, the map will use an ungrouped layout. If you select a field for either column and/or rows, you will get a matrix layout.

The ungrouped layout attempts to keep all issues at a similar distance from each other and organizes the issues so that link arrows point downwards or sideways, when possible. Issues which have no link to/from other issues are placed at the bottom of the diagram.

To try out different layouts, simply modify the column/row field selection while viewing the map.

Below is an example of an “ungrouped” map, where both the columns and rows fields are left empty:

The map below shows an example where Status is selected as the Rows field (the columns field is left empty):

Link following

All Dependency Maps are based on a Jira filter. When a Map is loaded, the filter will return a list of issues to display in the Map.

Sometimes, however, you may want to include issues that are linked to/from those returned by the filter. For example, let’s say that you have a Map based on the Board filter of your Jira Project. This will display all issues in your project, but dependencies to/from other projects will not be included (since those issues are not covered by the filter).

To solve this, you could create a new filter that adds all issues from those projects, but that will result in a Map that displays issues that you aren’t interested in. A better option is to use the Follow links (outside filter result) option.

The following image illustrates how it works:

When “Follow links” is set to No (the default value), you get a Map similar to the one on the left: only the issues returned by the filter are included. If you set “Follow links” to 1 step, you get the result shown in the center: links to/from the issues returned by the filter are included. If you set “Follow links” to 2 step, you get the result on the right: here, the “secondary” issues have been examined and links to/from those have been included.

How to work with a dependency map

Once the map is shown, you can navigate it using your mouse and/or trackpad.

To pan, click the left mouse button and drag (or use the pan gesture on your trackpad).
To zoom, use the scroll wheel (or pinch gesture on your trackpad). If you zoom in far enough you will see the Summary of the issue, instead of just the issue key.
To select an issue, click on the issue. To select additional issues, hold control or command and click on the issues. In addition to highlighting the selected issues, Dependency Map will also highlight their links, and any linked issues:

To show or hide links, click the checkbox next to the link type in the Links box. Note that selecting issues will still highlight the links to/from those issues.
The Issue color and Link type legends can be moved by simply dragging them.
To edit an issue in Jira’s standard issue screen, click the issue key at the top of the issue box (e.g. PX-72 in the example above).
The Issue Color legend shows how the colors of the issue boxes are mapped to values.