Jira-premium versions allows you to create issue type hierarchy above the Epic level. All issues are connected by using the “Parent” field. In the past you had to use “Epic Link” to add an issue to an epic as special case, but today all issue hierarchy is created using the “Parent” field.
Let’s assume that you have an issue hierarchy like this below. As you can see, we have one more level over Epic (Initiative/Epic/Story/Sub-Task).
Using this hierarchy, you can now add “Parent” to issues. Let’s assume that we have created an issue hierarchy compliant with the type hierarchy above.
As you can see, we have TEST-114 Initiative, and we have one Epic below it. Epic contains 2 tasks, and each task contains 2 sub-tasks. Jira’s “Advanced Roadmap” doesn’t show below task level (sub-tasks), but they are there.
You can create the corresponding timesheet view using “Parent Issue” (Not Parent) as grouping criteria. Of course, you can add more levels, like user. You can also add custom fields to the view.
As you can see in the above screenshot, complete type hierarchy is reflected to the timesheet view from Initiative to sub-task.
Don’t confuse “Parent Issue” with field value grouping “Parent”. “Parent” grouping only group issues for their direct parent. It doesn’t show complete hierarchy. For example, for the above data “Parent” grouping will produce the following report.
As you can see, above report has only 2 level hierarchy. We have also added “Parent” as field so that, you also see that even the top-level issues have parents. For example, TEST-108 has parent TEST-114.