What is the criteria that dictates / reflects the order of Epics in the backlog?

Lewis Kite_gztfk2

I am trying to create a Gadget on a Dashboard that echos out the Epics as they appear in the backlog, i.e. this

follows this

I can create a filter to use in the gadget e.g.

`type = Epic ORDER BY rank asc`

But the order is not the same.

Is there a value that represents the priority order of those Epics that I can order by in my jql?

Or is there another way of having the gadget reflect the order of the Epics in the backlog? Obviously it should track as we drag Epics about to reprioritise.

Many thanks for any pointers.

Lewis Kite

unknown

Hello @Lewis Kite 

Essentially speaking, you can't replicate the ranking of Issues (in your case, Epics) in the backlog in a gadget. Well, I'm fibbing a bit; you could, but it's so extraordinarily hard as to be pointless!!

This is because the rank of any particular issue in the backlog in relation to any other issue is stored in a relative alphanumeric value. This alphanumeric is re-indexed for every single issue every single time someone moves an issue up or down in the backlog. That constantly changing rank value is not 'just available' elsewhere for things like gadgets to reference, you'd have to constantly look it up via the REST API, then re-apply it through the gadget... which is so convoluted as to be pointless.

Refer to this thread for more history on this very ancient topic, or just Google "jira cloud rest api backlog rank" to see just how far back the topic stretches.