In Jira can I create an issue, and link it at the same time?

Question

I have a list of "Business Needs" (custom type) each need should be implemented by an "Epic".

How can I add a thing to a "Business Need" that will let me create an "Epic" with the link created automatically?

Answer 1

You can achieve this by developing a new Jira-Plugin.

This could consist of two parts:

1. Define a new menu entry in the jira application menu
2. Define a jira-action which does your linking stuff

Defining a new menu entry is rather simple: The needed plugin-type is Web Item Plugin Module. For this you just have to make an entry in your atlassian.xml:

<web-item key="foo" name="Foo"
        section="operations-top-level" weight="47">
        //snip...
        <label>Foo action</label>
        <link linkId="foo">
            <![CDATA[/secure/FooAction!default.jspa?issue=${issue.id}]]>
        </link>
</web-item>

After doing so you can define the action you want to trigger when clicking the action. For this you can use a Webwork plugin

<webwork1 key="fooaction" name="FooAction" class="java.lang.Object">
//snip...
<actions>
        <action name="fooaction" alias="FooAction"></action>
    </actions>
</webwork1>

In you FooAction-class you just can do your linking stuff:

public class FooAction extends JiraWebActionSupport {
    @Override
    @RequiresXsrfCheck
    public String doExecute() throws Exception {
         ComponentAccessor.getIssueLinkManager().createIssueLink(...);
    }
}