Building a Structure Manually
The following article is for structures built in Power mode.
Building a structure manually requires more work and maintenance than any of the other methods we’ve mentioned so far, but there are some situations where it might be the preferred method:
You want complete control over the work items you include and where they appear in the structure hierarchy
You want to visualize relationships that may not exist in Jira
You’re still in the planning phase and don’t want your actions to affect Jira
When you manually add items to a structure, their position is stored within the Structure app, so you can move things anywhere you like without affecting the work items in Jira. On the other hand, changes made in Jira will not affect the structure – it will be up to you to keep the structure up to date.
Changes to work item fields or properties from within the structure are reflected in Jira, regardless of how your structure is built.
Adding Work Items to a Structure Manually
You have a couple of options for filling your structure - you can create new Jira work items directly from Structure or add existing Jira work items to your structure. For the purpose of this guide, we're going to assume you already have work items you want to work with. So let's open the Add menu and select Search and Add.
To add work items:
Choose a JQL or Text search
Enter your search query
Select the work items you want to include and click Add selected, or select Add all
To learn more about searching with JQL, see the Atlassian guide to Advanced searching.
Organizing Work Items
Work Items can be moved in any of these ways:
With the mouse
Using the Structure toolbar
Using keyboard shortcuts (Press Ctrl+? for a complete list)
Via cut/copy and paste
Using the Mouse
To move a work item with the mouse, use the drag bar on the left side of the work item row. Press and hold the bar, then drag the work item to its new location.
You can move a work item up or down in the list, or move it right or left to create a custom hierarchy.
This is a very simple example, but you can create structures as simple or complex as necessary, using as many levels of hierarchy as you need.
Using the Toolbar
You can also move work items using the toolbar. Simply select the work item by clicking anywhere in the work item's row (except on a link, which will take you to the work item Details page) or using up/down on your keyboard. The selected row will be highlighted. Now you can use the toolbar to move work items up, down, left or right.
Cut/Copy and Paste
You can also move items using Cut, Copy and Paste. This is particularly useful when moving an item across a large structure.
First, select the work item by clicking anywhere in the work item's row or using up/down on your keyboard. The selected row will be highlighted.
To move the item:
Click the Cut button in the toolbar
Highlight the new location where you want the item
Click the Paste button
The original item will be placed in the row below the selected item.
To create a copy of an item:
Click the Copy button
Highlight the location where you want the copy placed
Click Paste
The copy will be placed beneath the highlighted item.
You can include multiple copies of a work item within a structure. The work item will still only exist once in Jira, but it can appear in multiple locations throughout your structure. This can be useful if, for example, a single task affects multiple stories.
Selecting Multiple Work Items
To move more than one item at a time, click the small circles at the far left of each item's row. (Hint: The circle is only visible when the item is selected or when you hover over the item with your mouse.)
Once you've selected your items, you can cut/copy and paste them using the toolbar, or you can drag them to a new location using any selected item's drag bar.
You can scroll through selected items using the up/down arrows on the selection panel, or use the Filter button to hide all non-selected work items. To close the selection panel, click the x button on the right.
Flex Items
Flex Items are special items in Structure that can be used to group work items, draft future Jira work items, add notes within your hierarchy, and more.
You can use Flex Items to:
Add "folders" to organize work items into groups
Plan projects - see Planning with Flex Items
Create placeholders for future work items
Add a note to the structure
And more!
To learn more about working with Flex Items, see Flex Items.
Next Steps
Next, we'll look at how to visualize your data within a structure.