Sorted Jira Structure does not appear sorted when displayed through a dashboard

[Navid Mohsenian]

I have a custom field called "Customer Name". When a ticket is first created the custom field can be set one of Customer 1, Customer 2, ... Customer n.

I have created a Structure that lists all customers and the total number of story points for each customer. The structure is designed like this:

Group by Customer Name

Sort by Story Points

Insert issues: filter = "all work estimates for all customers"

This structure works fine and sorts all my customers based on which customer has the most work.

However, when I import the structure into a Jira dashboard I find that there is no way I can make the sort persistent. In fact it appears the sort is driven by how the custom field order is configured in custom fields. For example if I have configured the custom field to show 

Customer 1

Customer 2

Customer 3

then, that is the order they show in the Jira dashboard regardless of how the structure is sorted. 

Any insight how to make the sort persistent when importing a structure in a Jira dashboard. 

Thanks in advance!

[Egor Tasa [ALM Works] · Accepted solution]

Dear Navid,

I think I know what is happening, but this is a guess, so please, correct me if that guess is wrong.

You probably have sorted the Structure by clicking on the column's name - this action creates what we call Transformation, which is a way of working with a structure in private without affecting its global setup. As such, the transformation is not carried over to the dashboard gadget. In fact gadget does not support transformations apart from sorting (and even that support is limited).  

There are a couple of ways to handle this. First, one can apply sorting as a generator - for that in the Structure board enter Automation editing mode (Automation button is pressed), click on the first line of the structure to highlight it, and then select Automation+>Sort>Attribute...>Used in Columns>Σ Story Points

Such sorting will persist to gadget and everyone else will see it as well when they access the structure in question either through gadget or Structure board.

Alternatively, in the gadget select the view containing the Σ Story Points and click on the column's header to sort by it. Note that this transformation will not persist even reloading of the page, but if you need it only temporarily, it is a quick way to sort gadget structure.

Please, let me know if my suggestion was helpful. And if I am incorrect in my assumption, please, describe your actions in a few more details for me to reproduce the problem.

Regards,

Egor Tasa
ALM Works

[Navid Mohsenian]

Hi Egor,

Thank you for your clever solution. It worked!

I am wondering if you know of a way to show the grand total sum of all story points in my structure.  I can see the total for each line item, but I am wondering whether there is a way to display the grand total of "all" line items. I can see the grand total when I click on "Automation" but when Automation is turned off the grand total disappears and I cannot display it in the structure. 

Thanks

Navid

[Egor Tasa [ALM Works]]

Hi Navid,

Glad to hear my suggestion helped. 

For displaying Grand Total we recommend putting the whole Structure into a folder. Create a folder (through Add drop-down in the top left corner of the board for example) at the top level of the Structure and move all generators (and manually added items if any) there. 

You can see such folder in the example via this link.

Regards,
Egor

[Navid Mohsenian]

Hi Egor,

Thank you for your suggestion. I got a chance to try the solution. I am able to create a folder but am unable to drag-and-drop the generators into that folder. It tries to force met to drop them above or below the folder but not within the folder. Is there a trick to copying the generators to a folder.

Thanks

Navid

[Egor Tasa [ALM Works]]

Hi Navid,

Generally there should not be any problems moving generators under a folder, but in a smaller display it may be tricky to indent the generator by dragging it. There are a few tricks to circumvent this.

One I recommend would be:

1. Select all generators: Click on the first one, then Shift-Click on the last one;
2. Then Cut (Ctrl-X) them;
3. Click on the folder to select its row;
4. Paste (Ctrl-V) NB! Do not click on error message.
5. Then indent the bunch of generators either from keyboard (Ctrl-RightArrow) or by clicking on the right arrow in the structure toolbar at the top. 

This can be done individually for each generator if you have troubles selecting them all.

Please, let me know if this suggestion helps.

Regards,
Egor

[Navid Mohsenian]

Thanks again Egor for your input. 

Unfortunately I was unsuccessful in copying the generators to the new folder. As a work-around I built a new structure, but added the folder before adding the generators. That worked! At this point I am all good with what I have.

Just in case you are interested in my use case:

I created a structure with the following generators:

1. Group by Assignee

2. Sort by Σ Story Points

3. Insert issues: filter = <my JQL>

then I added a folder but the folder was forced to be created at the very bottom of the list. At this point copy and pasting, or drag/drop into the folder was not possible. 

Thanks

Navid

[Egor Tasa [ALM Works]]

Hi Navid,

Thank you for providing a scenario. Sadly, I couldn't find why were you unable to move the issues into the folder, but another way was removing generators and then recreating them under the folder.

So far I understand you have the solution, but if you encounter problems with Structure in the future, feel free to contact support@almworks.com any moment.

Regards,
Egor