DATA CENTER AND SERVER | CLOUD

Project Tree View

The Project Tree

The Project Tree is reached by selecting a project from the Requirements section in the main navigation bar. The tree is located on the left side of the view and is always visible. Selecting a requirement in the project tree opens the Detail View for the requirement on the right side by default. Selecting a folder in the project tree opens the Reading View on the right side by default. Depending on preference, the view may be switched between the Detail View, Reading View, or Tabular View for both issues and folders. The last selected view for a folder and issue will be retained.

The requirements of a given project can only appear once in its tree. However, since requirements in one project may be reused in other projects, they may appear in multiple project trees.

Requirements may be included in other requirements as child requirements. Child requirements are manipulated in exactly the same ways as other requirements and may be indefinitely nested.

Jira subtasks are not automatically displayed as children of their parent issues in the project tree. If this is desired, they can be added as child requirements of their respective parents.

If not all issues are visible in the tree, your Jira administrator may have configured a Maximal visible sub-items in tree.

Tree Sidebar

The project tree sidebar is a container that appears on top of the project tree. It contains operations that apply to the whole tree structure, as indicated in the following table.

Refresh tree

Refreshes the project tree items' content and fetches any updates from the server.

Filter tree

Filters the items in the project tree based on the search configuration. See Tree Filter.

Configure display fields

Configures the issue fields displayed in the project tree. See Display Fields Configuration.

Configures the project tree to show the last viewed folder or issue.

Context Menu Operations

The project tree consists of folders, issues and references to pages in Confluence. To access the context menu, right-click on any item in the tree. Each type of item has its own set of context menu entries for performing appropriate operations, as indicated in the following tables.

Folder operations

Availability



Root Folder

Other Folders

Create issue

Opens the Jira Create Issue dialog. Select Create to create the new requirement or issue and add it to the selected folder.

Create folder

Opens the create folder dialog, where you enter a name and a description for the new folder. The names of folders within one parent folder must be unique. Select Create to create the new folder below the selected one. 

Create baseline

Opens the create baseline dialog, which allows you to enter a name and an optional description for the new baseline. Select Create to create a new baseline for the folder. 

If a filter is applied to the tree, only issues that satisfy the filter are included in the baseline.

Add existing issues

Opens the Add Existing Issues dialog, where the following possibilities are available:

  • The first option (Add all issues) adds all issues in the project that are not already in the tree.

  • The second option (Add issues from filter) adds issues matching the provided filter or JQL query.

  • The third option (Search for issues) allows selecting recently viewed issues.

  • The fourth option (Move issues) adds issues matching the provided filter or JQL query, regardless whether they are already in the tree or not. Issues that match the filter that are are already present in the tree will be moved to the new location.

Select the option Run scheduled to enable automatic import based on the selected source.

Due to the fact that issues may only appear once in a project’s tree, any issues that are already in the tree (in some other folder), are ignored, even if they match a filter or are manually selected to be added to a given folder.

Only filters shared with the requirements project, or in the categories “My“, “Favorite“ or “Popular“, may be used when selecting a filter.

Add page

Opens the add Confluence page dialog, allowing you to search for existing pages in any linked Confluence instance.

Show in issue navigator

Opens the Jira issue navigator in a new browser tab or window. All issues contained in the selected folder and its subfolders are displayed by applying a search query using the JQL function requirementsPath, provided by R4J.

Export default Word

Exports the selected folder using the default Word template.

Export default Excel

Exports the selected folder using the default Excel template.

Export Template

Opens the Export template dialog, where you choose the custom Word or Excel template to export the selected folder.

Export XML

Exports the selected folder using the default XSLT.

Cut

Stages one or more folders or requirements for pasting within the same project or to a different project.

Copy

Stages one or more folders or requirements for copying within the same project or to a different project.

Paste

Pastes staged items to the selected folder, as follows:

Delete

Opens the delete folder dialog.

Get URL

Creates a URL for the selected folder or requirement. Opening the URL in a browser displays the project tree with the folder or requirement preselected. 

Sort issues

Opens the sort issues dialog, where you choose the issue field to sort by, as well as the sort order. Issues can be sorted by issue key, creation date, issue summary, issue type or priority. Select Sort to perform the operation.

Collapse all

Collapses the selected folder and all subfolders.

Expand

Expands the selected folder and all subfolders.
Jira administrators can configure number of levels that can be expanded at a time.

Properties

Opens the edit folder dialog. Folders are just a special type of Jira issue, made available by R4J, and their fields are edited in the same way as for other types of issues (except that the name of the root folder cannot be changed). R4J enhances the edit dialog with a statistics section showing, for example, the number of issues in a folder.

For existing folder you can assign a user as a watcher. This person will get notified for changes on the folder content: adding, moving, sorting, pasting, deleting of issues/folders/children inside the folder or update of folder name.

Issue and page operations

Availability



Issues

Pages

 

Create child issue

Opens the Jira Create Issue dialog. Select Create to create the new requirement or issue and add it as child of the selected requirement.

Create linked issue

Opens the Create Linked Issue dialog, which allows you to specify the the outgoing link type, as well as project in which the new issue should be created and the issue type of the new issue. Selecting Create opens the Jira Create Issue dialog, prefilled with the information entered in the dialog. Select Create to create a new issue of the chosen type in the chosen project, linked to the new issue with the chosen link type.

Choose to add the new issue with the following additional options:

  • as child - add the linked issue as child of the selected issue

  • as sibling - add the linked issue at the same level as the selected issue in the last position

  • not to the tree - the linked issue will not be added to the tree and available in Jira only

 

Add link

Opens the Add Link dialog, allowing you to add a Jira issue, Confluence page, or Web link for the issue selected.

Add existing issues

Opens the Add Existing Issues dialog, where the following possibilities are available:

  • The first option (Add all issues) adds all issues in the project that are not already in the tree.

  • The second option (Add issues from filter) adds issues matching the provided filter or JQL query.

  • The third option (Search for issues) allows selecting recently viewed issues.

  • The fourth option (Move issues) adds issues matching the provided filter or JQL query, regardless whether they are already in the tree or not. Issues that match the filter that are are already present in the tree will be moved to the new location.

Select the option Run scheduled to enable automatic import based on the selected source.

Choose to create link between the selected and added issues. Enable the toggle for "Create link" and select the link type to establish the link when adding issues.

Due to the fact that issues may only appear once in a project’s tree, any issues that are already in the tree (in some other folder), are ignored, even if they match a filter or are manually selected to be added to a given folder.

Export default Word

Exports the selected issue or page using the default Word template.

Export default Excel

Exports the selected issue or page using the default Excel template.

Export Template

Opens the Export template dialog, where you choose the custom Word or Excel template to export the selected issue or page.

Export XML

Exports the selected issue or page using the default XSLT.

Cut

Stages one or more folders or requirements for pasting within the same project.

Copy

Stages one or more folders or requirements for copying within the same project or to a different project.

Paste

Pastes staged items to the selected folder, as follows:

  • cut and paste: The items are moved to the new location. Paste is only available if the cut items are from the same project as the selected folder. The operation simply moves items within the project tree and can also be accomplished using drag and drop.

  • copy and paste: The Reuse Issues dialog is displayed, where options for copying the items are presented. See Requirements Reuse.

Remove

Opens the remove issue/page dialog.

Get URL

Creates a URL for the selected folder or requirement. Opening the URL in a browser displays the project tree with the folder or requirement preselected. 

Sort issues

Opens the sort issues dialog, where you choose the issue field to sort by, as well as the sort order. Issues can be sorted by issue key, creation date, issue summary, issue type or priority. Select Sort to perform the operation.

Collapse all

Collapses the selected issue and all child issues.

Expand

Expands the selected issue and all child issues.
Jira administrators can configure number of levels that can be expanded at a time.

 

Edit issue

If the selection contains one issue the Jira Edit Issue dialog opens. If the selection contains multiple issues the Jira Bulk Edit dialog opens.

Open in Confluence

Opens the linked page in Confluence.

Multiple select operations

Bulk Edit

Opens a new tab that redirects to the Jira Bulk Edit view.
Disabled when pages or folders are included in the selection.

Cut

Stages one or more folders or requirements for pasting within the same project.

Copy

Stages one or more folders or requirements for copying within the same project or to a different project.
Disabled when a page is included in the selection.

Remove

Opens the remove items dialog to confirm removing items from the tree.

Drag and Drop Operations

The project tree supports the following drag and drop operations:

  • Change folder positions

  • Change the folder hierarchy

  • Change the position of requirements, pages, and folders

  • Move requirements, pages, and folders around the hierarchy

  • Create and remove child requirements

  • Change the order of child requirements

  • Move child requirements around the hierarchy

Tree Filter

To filter the issues in the project tree, select the Filter button in the project tree sidebar.

After configuring the filter, select Search to apply the filter to the tree. 

  • The filter results are initially collapsed to retrieve content faster. Expand the folders and issues to view all of the results.

  • If the last item selected before filtering is included in the results, it will still be selected. If there’s only one item matching the filter, it will automatically be selected.

The following video explains this behavior: Requirements Management for Jira: Collapsed Tree with Filtered Results.

To undo the filter, select Clear. The current filter is reflected in the browser's URL for convenient sharing.

Filter Types

Basic

Filter the issues in the tree based on your selected Project, Type, Status, and Assignee values. Select "More" to add other fields to the filter. The current project is selected by default in v4.21.
The following video explains this option in more detail: Requirements Management for Jira: More flexibility in search options.

Text search is also possible by entering a term in the field marked “Contains text”. All the constructions for textual search available in JQL may be used here - see Search syntax for text fields. Note that the criteria you specify show up in the Advanced filter option as JQL after you execute the search.

Jira Filter

Use predefined Jira filters. (Only Managed Filters from the following categories can be selected in the Filter picker: Filters shared with current requirements project, as well as filters in “My“, “Favorite“ or “Popular“.)

Advanced

Directly enter the desired JQL to use as filter. The JQL with current project is prepended by default in v4.21.

Folder

Filter issues based on a text search of the summary and description of folders by entering a search term in the text field. The following searches are available:

  • exact word or phrase search: For example, “Component” matches summaries containing that word, while “Component Requirements” matches summaries containing that phrase. The match is case-insensitive.

  • wildcard prefix search: For example, “Comp*” matches summaries containg a word starting with those letters (case-insensitive). (The wildcard search only works when the “*” is placed at the end of the search term, not at the beginning or within the term.)

Quick Filters

In the filter dialog, the quick filters defined by project administrators can then be used by project users instead of, or in addition to, the Basic, Filter, and Advanced filters in the tree view. If you don’t see the desired quick filters in the dialog, request your project administrator to create some.

Select one or multiple quick filters to combine in your search.

Export

To export one or more requirements, select a requirement or folder and select an option from the Export dropdown in the main R4J menu bar - see Export generation.

Tree Settings

To access the project tree settings dialog, click on the Settings button on the top right of the view. The following options are available:

Show issue tooltips in tree

Toggle to show tooltips with issue information.

Remember tree selection

Toggle to show the last viewed folder or issue when loading a project tree.

The plugin version is also displayed in the Settings dialog.

Keyboard Shortcuts

  • Del: Opens the Remove Issue dialog for the item.

  • e: Edit an issue.