Structure is an essential Jira app for efficient teamwork and flexible issue organization. With Structure, you can bring order and visibility to your projects, tasks and processes — the way you need it to be.
Organize
Visualize
Automate
Collaborate
Anything from your personal backlog
to a company-wide portfolio overview
Multiple projects, cross-team visibility, link hierarchy and more
Use grouping, sorting, filtering and other rules to build dynamic structures that update in real time
Work together on your structures as you plan new features, sprints and releases
Introduction
Structure lets you build hierarchical lists, called structures, and share them with your team or across the company. A structure can contain issues, folders and other items. There is no limit on the hierarchy depth, and you can bring together all types of issues from different projects.
The main screen for working with structures is called Structure Board. There you can explore and change your structures. The Structure Board supports two panels and different layouts that let you view item details, search results or another structure in the second panel.
Structure Panel
Item Details
The structure toolbar shows buttons for the most frequent actions. When you have two panels open, the actions apply to the currently focused panel, which is indicated by a blue light at the top. The controls at the top of each panel let you specify what you'd like to see in that panel.
Adding Existing Issues to a Structure
A structure is like a container for issues and other items. It contains only those issues that are placed there, in the order that you specify. An issue may be included in multiple structures, and it may appear in a structure multiple times. Here's how you can manually add existing issues to a structure.
1Switch to Double Grid
2Search for Issues
3Select Issues to Add
Open second panel via the Layout control or by pressing Ctrl + Alt + 2
Select Text or JQL search and enter a query. Note that only issues from
Structure-enabled projects will be shown in the result.
If you need to add more than one issue, select them by clicking the selection mark or pressing Space
4Place Issues in the Structure
Drag issues from the search panel to the desired place in the structure. To adjust the level where the issues are dropped, move your mouse left or right. You can also use the Copy / Paste toolbar buttons and shortcuts —
Ctrl + c, Ctrl + v, Ctrl + Shift + v. Before pasting, select the item that immediately precedes the desired location for issues to be added.
Creating New Issues and Folders
You can create new issues right inside a structure. You can also create folders to group other items together. Folders are visible only in the structure.
1Choose Location and Item Type
2Enter Summary
Select where to add the item and use the Add button in the toolbar or press Enter. To create a sub-item press Shift + Enter.
Enter issue summary or folder name. You can also enter other issue fields if they are added as columns — just press Tab or click the value you need to edit.
Modifying Structure and Editing Items
When you need to rearrange items in the structure, you can move them using drag-and-drop. Drag items by the drag handle on the left, or by holding Shift and grabbing the item anywhere. While dragging, hold Alt to choose between Copy and Move operations.
To move an item one step at a time, use the Move buttons in the toolbar or by using the Ctrl + Arrow shortcuts.
Edit an issue or a folder by double-clicking the value you'd like to change. You can also press the Tab key to start editing or go to the next field.
Using Columns and Views
Structure can show you all kinds of data about your project. You select what information you need by adding and configuring columns. Besides columns that show issue fields, there are "aggregate" columns that can display totals for a numeric field and advanced columns, like the highly-configurable Progress column.
1Adding a Column
2Editing Column Settings
To add a column, click "+" at the top right corner of the panel, or press Ctrl + Shift + |.
If you need to reconfigure or remove a column, hover your mouse over the column name and click the triangle on the right. Columns can be repositioned.
After configuring the columns, you can save that configuration as a View. Later you can quickly switch between views.
Searching, Sorting and Filtering
Structure allows you to search Jira for issues and apply powerful sorting and filtering to the results.
1Sorting
2Searching and Filtering
You can quickly sort a structure by clicking column titles. Note that this type of sorting is a transformation that only you are seeing — other users will still see the unsorted structure.
To find items in a structure, click the Search button or press Ctrl + Alt + /. Text and JQL search are available, as well as S-JQL — our special language for finding items according to their position and relationship to other items in the structure.
Quick filters let you additionally filter the displayed issues.
Automation
Advanced
Automation is a powerful feature that lets you create dynamic structures. Unlike a manually created structure, a dynamic structure can update itself when there are changes in Jira. You can make parts of your manually created structure dynamic — for example, automatically placing all issues that match a query under a manually added folder.
Automation works through generators — special meta-items that are also located in the structure. You make a structure dynamic by adding and configuring generators. Normally, generators are not shown — you need to switch on the Automation button to be able to see and configure generators.
There are five types of generators — five things you can do with a dynamic structure:
Insert issues or other structures into your structure
Remove non-matching items from the structure
Sort adjacent items by field value
Place items into groups, based on field value
Include other items that are linked to items already in the structure
To add a generator, first select its parent item — the generator will affect only the part of structure under that item. Then, click "+" part of the Automation button.
Double-click the generator or use the Edit button on the toolbar to edit its configuration. You can also move generators to other positions in the structure or remove them.
You can also apply most generators to an already existing structure or even a search result. This is called transformation — you get a transformed, dynamic structure, while the original structure is not changed. Current transformations can be shown and changed using the Transformations panel.
That's it!
Congratulations, you've learned how to use Structure! Now it's time to apply your knowledge — browse available structures on your server by selecting Structure | Manage Structure menu.
