Why is the timelines view not saving when I move epics?

[Tom.Hext]

In the last few days i've noticed that when I re-organise epics on the timeline view the changes are not saving. The next time I come back they have gone into another order. There is no sorting applied here at all and it worked fine previously. What's changed?

[Bill Sheboy]

Hi @Tom.Hext -- Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

I am assuming you are using Advanced Roadmaps (timeline) as you appear to be on Jira Premium.  Is that correct?

If so, when the sort order has not been set, it uses the default: Rank.  That also is the default for the filter when creating a Jira board.  In that case...

• If someone has reordered the epics in another view, they will update in all views that use the same order, such as timeline.
• If you instead have a different order for the board filter, please look at that to determine what might have changed for the epics that would have impacted the sorting.

Kind regards,
Bill

[Tom.Hext]

How do I change or view the rank of each epic?

Nothing has changed about the epics so finding it hard to understand why the order isn't saving. 

Thanks

[Bill Sheboy]

Rank (aka, LexoRank) is the internal mechanism Jira uses to handle ordering issues for sorting.  It allows adding/removing/updating/moving an issue with no changes to the surrounding issues while managing the ordering.  Although you can look at Rank, it may not help as it is a text string of letters, numbers, and characters...not a numeric series of 1, 2, 3,...

For epics, the Rank could be changed by dragging the issue higher or lower in the list, such as in the backlog or on the board.

I recommend looking at an issue you believe has changed order (and the ones around it), and review their issue histories to see if they have "Ranked lower" or "Ranked higher" and who did the change.