Selecting issues

Updating the issue selection

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

The set of issues selected constitute 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 Link direction selection.

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. For all details on JQL, please refer to JIRA's documentation on Advanced searching. The following table shows examples of frequently used JQL queries and their meaning:

JQL	Meaning
Project = ABC	All issues of project ABC
Project in (ABC, DEF)	All issues of projects ABC and DEF
Project = ABC and sprint = 'Sprint 9'	All issues of Sprint 9 of project ABC
Project = ABC and fixversion = '3.1'	All issues of version 3.1 of project ABC
Project = ABC and status != done	All issues of project ABC that are not done
Project = ABC and assignee != jsmith	All issues of project ABC that are not assigned to user jsmith
Project = ABC and duedate < now()	All overdue issues of project ABC

Link direction

The Link direction 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. Direction selected is 'Both parents and children'. And 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 connexions) plus the blocking issue of DEF (and its connected issues) and the blocked issue of GHI (and its connected issues).

You change the Link direction by selecting the radio button corresponding to one of three values:

Both parents and children	Add all nodes connected to the starting set of issues
Children only	Add all children nodes of the starting set of issues
Parents only	Add all ancestor nodes of the starting set of issues

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 selected issues that have no connections to other issues. 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.