Scrum Board sort by Epics with JQL

Question

I try to build a Scrum board like it is if you choose "swimlane based on Epics" but I need some additional Lines thats why I must configure it with JQL.

My thoughts were may be with "order by epic-name" but it doesn't work. It didn't order in any way, not in epic names(serveral blocks for each epic) neither sort it in epic names(alphabetical in one block). It simply seems to ignore this order function. (Same result with epic-color, epic-status and epic-link).

The other Lines I need with JQL works fine and as they should. (In this Lines are no Tickets which belong to an epic)

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance

Andy Heinzer · Answer

Hi Sven,

I'm not sure why you would be getting different results than me here.  Are you trying to use this JQL query as a quick filter to the board?  Or are you getting this error when in the issue navigator page (which would have a URL such as http://jira.example.com/issues/ )?

The Quick filters of a board are not going to be able to change the ordering sequence anyways.  But I can't seem to recreate the problem you have described here.  I tried to also switch my system language into German, and reindex, but alas, I still can't seem to generate that error.  I'm curious if perhaps there is something different about your environment or the name of the custom field here that might be a factor.

Is it possible your Jira has more than one custom field called 'Epic Link'?

If you can run the following SQL query against the Jira SQL database we could see more info:

select * from customfield where cfname='Epic Link';

I would only expect there to be a single field with that name, but Jira won't prevent an admin from creating another field by that name.  I have also sometimes seen upgrade failures that can create multiple custom fields with the same name, if that happened here then perhaps there is a problem with the field we think we're selecting here.  If not, I'm kind of stumped as to why you would be getting different results than me here.

Andy

Sven Frankmölle · Answer

Hey Andy,

we have also here 8.5.1 but it doesn't work. If I try to insert you JQL it says "Das Sortieren mithilfe von Feld 'Epic Link' ist nicht möglich." - Translation: It isn't possible to order with field 'Epic Link'

Unfortunately it says not why it isn't possible.

KR,

Sven

Andy Heinzer · Answer

Hi Sven,

If I understand your request here, you're looking to be able to order issues by their epic in a JQL filter so that you can sort through these on a scrum board.

I have found that trying to order by epic link CAN work, but if the issues returned by your JQL query do not have a value for that field, the sorting appears to be not working as expected.  To try to get around this I was able to build a JQL query such as

"Epic Link" is not empty order by "Epic Link"

This JQL will only return issues that at least have an epic link, and then sort by that link.  This appears to be working correctly for me in my Jira Server 8.5.1 version right now.

Does this help?  If not, could you tell me more info about your use case here.  Perhaps I'm misunderstanding the use case here.

Cheers,

Andy