Sorted Jira Structure does not appear sorted when displayed through a dashboard

Navid Mohsenian

I have a custom field called "Customer Name". When a ticket is first created the custom field can be set one of Customer 1, Customer 2, ... Customer n.

I have created a Structure that lists all customers and the total number of story points for each customer. The structure is designed like this:

Group by Customer Name

Sort by Story Points

Insert issues: filter = "all work estimates for all customers"

 

This structure works fine and sorts all my customers based on which customer has the most work.

However, when I import the structure into a Jira dashboard I find that there is no way I can make the sort persistent. In fact it appears the sort is driven by how the custom field order is configured in custom fields. For example if I have configured the custom field to show 

Customer 1

Customer 2

Customer 3

then, that is the order they show in the Jira dashboard regardless of how the structure is sorted. 

Any insight how to make the sort persistent when importing a structure in a Jira dashboard. 

Thanks in advance!

Egor Tasa [ALM Works]

Dear Navid,

I think I know what is happening, but this is a guess, so please, correct me if that guess is wrong.

You probably have sorted the Structure by clicking on the column's name - this action creates what we call Transformation, which is a way of working with a structure in private without affecting its global setup. As such, the transformation is not carried over to the dashboard gadget. In fact gadget does not support transformations apart from sorting (and even that support is limited).  

There are a couple of ways to handle this. First, one can apply sorting as a generator - for that in the Structure board enter Automation editing mode (Automation button is pressed), click on the first line of the structure to highlight it, and then select Automation+>Sort>Attribute...>Used in Columns>Σ Story Points

Such sorting will persist to gadget and everyone else will see it as well when they access the structure in question either through gadget or Structure board.

Alternatively, in the gadget select the view containing the Σ Story Points and click on the column's header to sort by it. Note that this transformation will not persist even reloading of the page, but if you need it only temporarily, it is a quick way to sort gadget structure.

Please, let me know if my suggestion was helpful. And if I am incorrect in my assumption, please, describe your actions in a few more details for me to reproduce the problem.

Regards,

Egor Tasa
ALM Works