Ranking in JIRA

Question

I have enabled "Rank" in general settings for my kanban board. I have observed that order by RANK asc; is added in my filter query which I believe has ranked issues on board in ascending order. Below are my queries-

1. How do I know which issue is ranked highest and what is the rank of other items.

2. If I drag and drop issues up/down, will the rank unique id also change in the backend ?

3. If ranking is done correctly, then how do I get to know if issues are ranked correctly when I change columns for issues ex: from to do --> in dev --> in testing . Does ranking change ?  How do I know if which issue is of what rank ?

Jack Brickey · Answer

Nic,

I am assuming that rank would change in the active sprint or Kanban if issues were rearranged. Is that not the case? Is the scenario I described accurate or not? Visually, ranking is easily understood when there is a single column like the backlog. It becomes less visually clear with multiple columns.

Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Answer

1. You look at the list of issues, the highest ranked one is at the top, the lowest at the bottom, and the others in order between those two

2. Yes, rank is a unique value across the whole system, no two issues can have the same rank

3. Status change does not change a rank, unless it is something that moves an issue into a sprint.  How you know what the rank is, is again, look at the issue in the backlog, board or filter (sorted by rank), the issues above and below it will show you where it is ranked

Jack Brickey · Answer

Hi @Ashwini Gunjal , first I would refer you to this article- rank-an-issue

While you could use Advanced search and include rank as a column the displayed results will not be understood at least easily. Regarding ranking between columns it would only be retained if you transition using the transitions within the detailed view not the drag and drop. The reason for this is that ranking is controlled using drag and drop. Let me see if I can explain by example.

assume we have 3 issue in To Do column ranked as follows.

Issue B

Issue C

Issue A

Then let’s say you drag issue issue A to In Progress you now have the following …

To Do           In Progress

Issue B         Issue A

Issue C

underlying the ranking is still preserved. Now if you would the drag Issue C to In Progress under Issue A then you will have changed the ranking as Issue C was originally above Issue A but now below. I believe (please test) that if you were to change the status of Issue C in the detailed issue view it would appear in the In Progress column above Issue A thus retaining the ranking.