Using rank why can't I move sub-tasks in backlog on kanban board?

[dale.harris]

We are using a Kanban board with stories and sub-tasks. There are stories that are active on the board with sub-tasks that are in the backlog. The board filter is setup to use Rank.

I can move stories up and down in the backlog. I can move sub-tasks up and down within the group of sub-tasks. However I cannot move a sub-task from an active story on the board up to the top of the backlog.

[Trudy Claspill · Accepted solution]

Hello @dale.harris 

Generally speaking I would say this is working as designed.

A subtask is considered an integral part of its parent issue. Jira does not support Ranking of subtasks except within their parent issue. Their Rank is a "subattribute" of the Rank of the parent issue. You cannot Rank a subtask separately from their parent task, making the subtask a lower or higher rank than the parent issue itself.

Are you working with issues in a Team Managed project or a Company Managed project? Does your board encompass issues from more than one project?

Can you provide screen images showing the parent issue "active" on the board while the subtask issues are shown in the backlog?

There may be something more to be discovered when we have a more thorough understanding of your scenario.

[dale.harris]

It is a company managed project. The issues are all in the same project.

The parent story is in the middle of the active in the workflow. The sub-tasks are in the backlog status of the Kanban board. The user was trying to prioritize, using Rank the sub-tasks above other stories in the Backlog, because the parent story is already "in flight" 
The intent is that when someone finishes an item, either story or sub-task they go to the backlog and take the next item in the prioritized backlog. However the subtasks for active stories cannot be moved to the top of the Kanban backlog and are just dispersed throughout the backlog of issues.

[Trudy Claspill]

Thank you for the additional information. I have been able to recreate your scenario.

In the below screen image of a Company Managed project Kanban board, where the status "Backlog" has been specified as the Kanban Backlog status, we can see in the backlog issues CKP-4 and CKP-2. CKP-2 has subtasks, all in the Backlog status, and it is ranked below CKP-4.

If I change the status of CKP-2 to "Selected for Development" it moves to the "Selected for Development" section above and becomes visible on the board, while the subtasks remain in the Backlog section. If I change the status of any of the subtasks to "Selected for Development" those individual subtasks also move.

I agree that at this point it is not obvious that the subtasks can't be moved above and below other parent issues to change the subtask Rank.

I suspect that Atlassian won't change their functionality to allow subtasks to be ranked separately from their parent issue. But you might want to raise this as a support case with Atlassian to see if they have an plans to change the UI to make it more obvious that the subtasks can be reranked as a group relative to other parent issues.

[Jerome ULRICH]

Reading the numerous discussions about this issue, I can see that I am not the only one facing problems with subtasks sorting.

For my part, I use subtasks to manage bugs after deploying on prod environment. The advantage it is much easier that way to regroup all the time that has been really spent on one US.

All in all it works perfectly well with the exception of this sorting problem. The subtasks are systematically located at the top of the to do column. I honestly don't see any advantage to keep it so.