Epic Panel Ordering

[meetinghouse]

I want to put the Epics in the Epic panel in a particular order. I have tried everything I have found along with what was suggested by my company's Jira Admins. None of the suggestions "hold". The order that Jira decides does not seem to have any discernable pattern that I can tell. It's not numeric, alphabetic or priority that I can tell. 

Biggest problem is that I also cannot get all Epics that are in Closed status to stop appearing. I have many closed that don't appear, but several Closed that I cannot get to go away. 

[Paul O]

The order of EPICs in the panel is their rank order and by dragging one EPIC above the other in the panel you change the EPIC rank. You can test this by using the advanced search feature and running the JQL

project = <your_project> and issuetype = epic order by Rank

the query will display the results in the order of the panel. Drag an EPIC above another in the panel and re-run the query and you'll see the result reflect the change in the panel

To remove closed epics from the panel, click the arrow button on the right of the EPIC and choose to mark as done as shown in the screenshot below.

[meetinghouse]

I've tried the drag an drop ordering before and it never 'holds'. Every time I come back it's reverted to some order that makes no sense to me. 

UPDATE 3/17/21: I tried this again today. I dragged and dropped all of my Epics in the order in which I wanted them. In this case, that was alphabetically. Then, I closed the Epic Panel, refreshed the page, reopened the Epic Panel, and they're back in some wonky random order. 

What workflow status does the Epic have to be in in order to mark it done. I have the ones I've trying to remove from the Panel in "Closed", and when I click on "Mark as Done" I first get

"...will be marked as Done. It will no longer be displayed in the Epics panel of the Backlog, but can be viewed in the Epic Report.'

When I then click on "Confirm", I get an error that says "This issue cannot be edited because of its workflow status."

UPDATE 3/17/21: I think I've confirmed that the Epic cannot be in the Closed status to mark as done. I went into the closed Epics, changed their workflow status to Resolved as Complete. Only then while is was still in the Resolved status, was I able to mark them as done. I have not tried to close them again. 

[Paul O]

For the ordering issue, please check the following:

Go to board settings and check your filter query has RANK enabled. You won't be able to drag to change rank if not enabled.

e.g. The following will not allow you to re-order epics

by using the 'Add Rank' button you will amend the filter query to include the ORDER BY RANK ASC and you should be OK to drag and drop

For the 'marking EPICs' as done you are actually setting a value on a field called 'EPIC Status'.  That field is independent of 'Status' as confusing as that sounds.  The reason you can't edit this field is most likely because there is a condition to prevent edits to fields when the issue is in certain statuses.  You can remove this condition by following the instructions at: https://confluence.atlassian.com/jirakb/how-do-i-edit-closed-issues-779160787.html

[meetinghouse]

The problem appears to be that I do not have ranking enabled. I did that to solve a different 'problem'. I need my Backlog view to display in priority order. Is there a way to do that without turning ranking off?

[Paul O]

You can display your backlog in priority order but then you won't be able to drag to re-order issues or epics in the backlog or panel view. 

To order by priority simply add

ORDER BY priority ASC

(or DESC for descending) at the end of your board filter query. You can add more than one sort criteria so you could, for example, append your board filter query with :

ORDER BY priority ASC, "Story Points" DESC

See: https://support.atlassian.com/jira-software-cloud/docs/enable-ranking/ for further details

[meetinghouse]

Paul, are you saying that there is no current way to solve the problems I am trying to solve? They are:

1. Be able to display my backlog in priority order AND

2. Be able to display my Epics in the Epic Panel in an order of my choice, e.g., alphabetical, by priority? I don't really care about displaying my Epics in priority order but other users might. 

Thanks, 

Pat

[Paul O]

Fundamentally, a board - including backlog and Epic panel, is based on a single filter query with an order determined for all issues in the query.  That being the case, ordering issues and epics independently is not possible.  You do have some limited workaround options which might meet your needs in limited circumstances.

For example, in the case you outline above you could have your board filter based on something like:

project = MYPROJ ORDER BY "Epic Name", priority

This would order your backlog in priority order - your first requirement.  And order your your Epics in alphabetical order based on name - your second requirement. (And you can use ASC or DESC on each order item to make change ordering)

This works because the stories in your backlog don't have an 'Epic Name' so that particular ordering only applies to your Epics; stories and tasks will only be sorted by priority.  Obviously, the limitation is that you can't do this where the field you wish to sort by applies to both Epics and non-Epics.

The only other alternative I can suggest is to look at a solution where you separate out EPICs and stories/tasks into different boards so they can be viewed and sorted independently. Each board would be based on it's own filter and sort order (one with issuetype = Epic and the other with issuetype != Epic as part of the filter). You would then need to flip boards to see tasks/issue backlogs and Epic backlogs rather than utilise the Epic panel