How to drag and drop subtasks in Kanban column

[Alexander Makarovsky]

Hi there!
I'm using Jira Server 8.7.1.
I setup the Kanban board with 3 columns (to do / in progress / done) with swimlanes by assignee. 
The filter is
category != _EXTERNAL AND issuetype != Epic AND project not in (list of projects I don't want to show) ORDER BY Rank ASC
Ranking is using rank

Whenever a subtask appears in one the columns I can't move it up or down within this column, like I do with tasks. The card of a subtask shows inside a slightly larger card with parent task name which can't be dragged at all.

Would you please advise any solution for this?

[Alex Koxaras -Relational- · Accepted solution]

Hi @Alexander Makarovsky and welcome to the community,

I don't think you can rank subtasks, since they are part of a parent issue. Jira doesn't quite support this and I don't think you can move them up or down.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

You're right, sub-tasks cannot be ranked outside their parent issue.  It would be complete nonsense to have a sub-task that has a higher or lower rank than its parent.

You can change the order of sub-tasks within the issue, by drag and drop in the issue view.

[Alex Koxaras -Relational-]

When I was working on my previous job as a PM (eerr... account manager) and a Jira end user, I always struggling on moving subtasks about other parents... :/ 

[Alexander Makarovsky]

Thanks @Alex Koxaras -Relational- @Nic Brough -Adaptavist- 
Here is the situation I'm trying to fix. I have numerous assignees on the board which we use as a scheduling tool for a sprint. And for each assignee I schedule the order of tasks in "to do" column which collects issues from numerous projects. Sometimes the issues in this column are subtasks as it's more convenient for project owners. And this is where the problem occurs. Is there any other way to change the place of such subtask in a column of to-do issues?

[Alex Koxaras -Relational-]

@Alexander Makarovsky subtasks should be for devs, not for Product/Project Owners. In my opinion you should reschedule the way you create tasks. If you can't do that, then create tasks with a specific linking type (e.g. "splits from"). Then these tasks should be adjustable in rank.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Sub-tasks are not sprint items, they are fragments of their parent issue.  The product owner shouldn't really be caring about them, they should be looking at the stories. 

As they're part of a story, their rank in your backlog and board is that of their parent story, they can't be ranked outside their parent because they are a part of it.

Think of it this way - you've got three cars to build (stories).  You put them in order red first, green second, blue third.  Does it make sense to have "wheels on the red car" in fourth place?  It's nonsense because the red car is first.

[Philip de Meyer]

You're assuming one wants to move the subtask ahead of the parent. 
If one of the subtasks allocated to a user different than any other task in that parent and it is also on a different trajectory (say it's taking longer due to complexity) and say the parent and some of the other tasks are far ahead, you might want to individually move the priority of said subtask apart from the other task(s). Not necessarily ahead of the parent, just separately.
I have this example and thus this constraint.