How can I Enable Rank Field Visibility and Sorting Options in Jira Projects

Question

Currently, we’re unable to manage work item order efficiently because:

The Rank field is invisible — we can’t filter or sort by it.

When changing state from Backlog → Ready for Dev, tickets appear in random positions, disrupting the prioritization order.

During backlog refinement, we often move ~10 new items to Ready for Dev, which scatter randomly and require time-consuming manual reordering.

The Backlog view does not allow sorting by Created Date, so we must switch to List view, sort by “Latest,” and open each ticket manually to update its state.

With over 100 items in the backlog, this process has become unmanageable. We currently resort to screenshots or tracking ranks externally (e.g., in Confluence), which still doesn’t solve the underlying issue.

Requested Changes

If possible, could you please:

Make the Rank field visible in the projects — so that it can be displayed, filtered, and sorted both in the Backlog and Ready for Dev views.

Adjust the ordering logic for state changes from Backlog → Ready for Dev, so that new items appear consistently (either all at the top or all at the bottom) of the Ready for Dev list instead of in random positions.

Enable filtering and sorting by Created Date in the Backlog and Ready for Dev views — this would make backlog refinement much more efficient and predictable.

Michaela Adamcova · Answer

Hi all,

Thank you for the explanations and suggestions — that helps clarify how Jira handles ranking. Let me specify the issue a bit further. I’m not struggling with reordering items on the board itself, but rather with managing the backlog list in general (since the board only mirrors this list).

The suggestion about creating a custom number field for ranking sounds promising. For example, we could set a custom_rank value (e.g., 0) automatically whenever a ticket moves from Backlog → Ready for Development, ensuring that all newly refined items consistently appear at the top of the list.

However, as mentioned, this would unfortunately remove the ability to reorder items manually via drag-and-drop — which makes it a partial solution at best. It’s a pity, because in tools like Azure DevOps (from Microsoft), this behavior works seamlessly: when you change an item’s state, it retains a predictable order without breaking the prioritization sequence.

In short, I’m mainly looking for a way to make backlog prioritization more consistent and less dependent on manual reordering after each refinement round.

Trudy P Claspill · Answer

Adding to this....

Rank is a global. Rank is not specific to an individual project. This is because boards can be comprised of issues from multiple projects so the ranking has to be able to go across projects. If the rank of an item is changed in one board, it is possible that its position will change in another board as a result because ranking is global.

Rank is also relative. The information in the field is not human interpretable, but Atlassian can use the information to determine some number of work items ranked higher and/or lower than a given item, and thus display the items in an appropriate order.

It is possible that as you move an item (drag and drop) between columns, between the backlog list and the on-board (or sprints) section of the backlog screen, you may inadvertently change its rank based on dropping the item above or below items that already show in the destination area. I've never found a specific way to keep that from happening.

One way to limit the inadvertent change is to change the Status on the item directly rather than dragging it between columns to change the status. I know, that is not ideal.

With sprints, the workaround would be to edit the sprint field directly rather than dragging and dropping cards into sprints. Again, not an ideal solution.

John Funk · Answer

Hi Michaela,

Ranking in Jira is very complicated and uses a set of alphanumeric values for the Rank. So even if you could see the Rank field, it would be absolutely no help to you.

I have never really cracked this nut, but it seems that rank is related to when the card appears on the board for the first time. As you move it from one column to the next, it will nestle into a spot in relation to the other tickets already in that column and when they first came onto the board. This is totally my speculation and have never had it confirmed or denied one way or the other.

You can modify the filter to sort by a field, but then you cannot drag cards up and down the ORDER BY is not Rank. Some people create a custom number field and put values into that according to their rank. And then modify the board field to ORDER BY the custom field.