Jira dependencies timeline and Plans

New to blocking links in Jira? Start with What “blocks” means.

Once the links are in, the next question is where to see them. On Atlassian Community it reads “In our JIRA plan we want all of these to show in one Dependencies column. However, they are labeled as Blockers instead” (Community, October 2024). Jira has two places that draw dependencies: a space’s timeline and Jira Plans. This page says what each shows and where each stops, then what Blockline shows.

A space’s timeline

• What it draws. “The timeline can only show work items with the Blocks work item link type and link work items from a single space” (Atlassian). Another link type, or a link to another space, is not drawn.
• How to see them. In View settings, under Visual details, turn on Dependencies; a Jira admin has to have work item linking on (Atlassian).
• How to add one. Drag a dot from one work item to the one to link (Atlassian).
• When it turns red. “In the event of overlapping dates, the dependency link turns red” (Atlassian). The page says overlap; it does not say that a blocker landing after the epic it holds up is flagged.

Jira Plans

• Which plan. The page on dependencies in a plan “refers to the advanced planning features that are only available as part of Jira Cloud Premium and Enterprise” (Atlassian).
• What counts. “By default, dependencies in your plan treat all work item links as though they have the Blocks work item link type.” A Jira admin can set other link types, under Jira apps › Dependencies, for all plans on the site (Atlassian).
• The timeline view. A dependency is a line between two work items, or a numbered badge at each end of the bar, as the plan’s settings say. It turns red, “off-track”, when the first work item puts the second at risk; with Sequential dependencies, work items in the same sprint show as off-track (Atlassian, Atlassian).
• The Dependencies view. Select Dependencies in the plan’s navigation: work items as tiles with arrows, showing “only work items in your plan that have dependencies”, with filters at the top and a menu on each tile with Locate work item in timeline (Atlassian).

Where it stops: both views draw what is linked and say off-track or not. Neither page says why a dependency is off-track in terms of the blocker’s date, who holds it up, or which epic it puts at risk through its stories. The Dependencies view shows only work items that are in the plan. More on Plans across spaces in Cross-team dependencies in Jira, without Premium, and a chain drawn by hand in A Jira dependency map of one epic’s chain.

With Blockline

Blockline is our app. It reads the same links, with no plan to build and on Standard or Premium, and answers the question the two views leave open: which epics a blocker puts at risk.

• Across spaces. Apps › Blockline reads Blocks links in any spaces you pick, not one space’s timeline.
• A reason, not a colour. Each epic carries a level and a sentence: “PAYC-3 blocks STOR-4 and lands 6 days after this epic’s date”.
• Through the stories. A link on a story counts towards its epic.
• A map and a matrix. Show dependency map draws one epic’s chain, each box with its date and risk; the Team matrix counts the open dependencies between each pair of spaces.

Blockline reads the Blocks type by default and any other you tick in its settings (Settings). Which link type to use is in Jira blocked by vs depends on. More on the Blockline home page.