How to assign a rank to a Jira issue?

Question

We are not currently using an agile method to manage our projects.  What we would like to be able to do is within each priority level (or possibly a category) is to assign a numerical ranking to each issue.  So within all the medium priority issues we would have them ranked from 1 to X.  Changing a rank on one issue would reorder the list.

Is there any way to do that within Jira or has anyone seen an add-on that would accomplish that?

Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Answer

Yes, I know.  It's instinctive to humans, but a ranking field is technically quite hard to implement.

If you want a bit more on why, then there's some stuff about it on Atlassian's site that discusses the JIRA Software implementation of the "Lexorank" stuff they did for it.  There was a ranking field before they moved it to Lexorank, but it was notoriously slow and failed a lot.

David Fortner · Answer

Thanks for the information.  I thought about just adding a custom field to manage this ranking but when an order is changed I would have to go back and re-order all the other issues every time.  Would be nice if something did that automatically.

Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Answer

The only ranking I've seen is the ranking in the JIRA Software application, aimed at boards, although it is usable in plain JIRA as well.

It does not support your ranking-within-a-priority in a backlog, although you could get close by having a board that uses priority as swimlanes.