Customizing the diagram

Issue selection

To update the starting set of issues displayed in the diagram, type the selection query in the 'Issue selection' field in the parameters panel and hit enter. The selection query must be written using JQL syntax.

The set of selected issues constitutes the starting point to draw the graph. The diagram will actually show these issues plus their connected issues (outside the selection). Which connected issues will be added is determined by the Issue discovery selection.

Issue selection suggestions

While you type in the 'Issue selection' field, you will be presented with suggestions, if any. Suggested JQL queries are a mix of your favorite queries (a.k.a JIRA saved filters), identified by the icon, and recently used queries, identified by the icon. Only those that match what's currently typed in the Issue selection field are presented. Also only the last 10 valid queries are preserved for recent queries suggestions.

To use one of the suggested queries, either click on it or move the focus to it using the up and down arrows and hit enter. Hit enter to confirm the selection and redraw the diagram.

JQL queries

The starting set of issues used for the diagram is selected using a JQL query. JQL is a simple yet powerful query syntax defined by JIRA for selecting issues. The following table shows examples of frequently used JQL queries and their meaning. For all details on JQL and more examples, please refer to JIRA's documentation on Advanced searching.

Issue discovery

The Issue discovery parameter indicates which connected issues will be added to the starting selection. This allows you to discover, dependencies that you might miss otherwise. Let's see an example:

Joey types query 'Project = ABC' in issue selection field and hits enter. He then selects 'Both parents and children' for Issue discovery. Now let's say one of the issue of project ABC is blocked by an issue of project DEF and that another issue of project ABC blocks an issue of project GHI. The result will be a diagram showing all issues of project ABC (and their connections) plus the blocking issue of DEF (and its connected issues) and the blocked issue of GHI (and its connected issues).

Issue discovery has three possible values:

Link type

The diagram shows only one type of links at a time. The type of links displayed is determined by the Link type parameter. Simply select the type of links you would like to see in the parameters panel on the right and the diagram will automatically get updated. The list of link types available includes all link types that are currently defined in that JIRA instance. This means you can define your own link types and they will appear in the list of options in Pathfinder.

Orphans

Orphans are all displayed issues that have no connections to other issues. Note that an issue will be considered an orphan if it has a child issue, but the Issue discovery parameter is set to Parents only. You can hide (or show) them by unselecting (or selecting) the 'Show orphans' option in the parameters panel on the right. Toggling that value redraws the diagram and moves the remaining nodes to their preferred position. When orphan issues are hidden, the label at the top left of the diagram indicating the number of issues shown is updated to indicate how many issues are now hidden.

Highlight issues

Highlighting options let you discover issues that meet certain criteria. These options are persisted in your browser's local storage, thus they will be preserved as long as the browser's local storage is not cleared. Many options may be selected simultaneously. Available options are: