How to move the Top ranked backlog task to the kanban board using automation

[Munir Patel]

Already defined

Project : Software

Kanban Board: workflow has assigned, in progress and done

Backlog: Tasks

Need help with below:

When one task in Kanban board gets Done, I want to move top 1 task from Backlog into Kanban board through automation [i can drag and drop but that is a manual process]

[John Funk · Accepted solution]

Hi Munir,

I am not sure how Jira will know which card is the top ranked in the backlog. If you have a way to identify it, then you can have Automation For Jira do an auto transition on the card to the first status on the board. 

[Munir Patel]

Hi John,

Thank you for your response.

We sequence the Tasks in the Backlog in the order we want to see them. There must be some rank or order# to it and that is why it stays in the same order in the backlog. What I am looking for is how to move that Highest ordered task in the backlog to the next column on the Kanban board, which for me is the "Assigned" column.

Thanks

[John Funk]

Yes, I understand that but not sure how you will determine that based on values on the card. There is a ranking but it is extremely complicated and values are not simple numbers. I don't know how the system determines the order. 

[Munir Patel]

Hi John,

As an alternative, say I

- Create a  custom field called "Task sequence number".

- Populate manually the "Task sequence number" field say 1 in Task1, 2 in Task2 and so on.

[John Funk]

Yes, that's actually what I do - we have a custom field call Priority Number. 

You could actually create automation that auto transitions the card where your custom field = 1.

Then you could have another automation that subtracts one from the custom field for all tickets in the Backlog status whenever a ticket is transitioned out of the Backlog status. 

[Munir Patel]

Awesome solution John, can you please send me the syntax of how I can subtract -1 from the field. Thanks

[Munir Patel]

Got it how to subtract.

Thank you John for the solution. 

[Trudy Claspill · Accepted solution]

Hello @Munir Patel 

Welcome to the community.

Are you working with a Team Managed project or a Company Managed project? it will say at the bottom of the navigation pane on the left.

If you are working with a Team Managed project it is not currently possible to move an issue from the backlog to the board using Automation.

[Munir Patel]

Hi Trudy, 

Thank you for your response.

Project I am working on is a Company Managed Project.

[Trudy Claspill]

Ranking of issues in JIRA is not absolute and global. Rather it is relative and contextual.

An issue can appear in more than one board, and its rank can be different in each board.

There is currently no way to query for the top ranked issue in a given board.

For more information about ranking, here are some articles I found:

https://www.jirastrategy.com/questions/how-does-jira-issue-ranking-work

https://tmcalm.nl/blog/lexorank-jira-ranking-system-explained/

I also found this post where there has been much discussion about wanting to be able to get at the "rank" of an issue, which you might find interesting.

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-questions/How-to-see-numeric-rank-order-for-an-issue/qaq-p/611802

[fredrik_folkeryd]

@Munir Patel -- I have a suggested approach that I haven't tried myself but that may work for your use-case.

1. Trigger on transition to done

2. Use a web request action to fetch the list of issues in your board (filterId) *but* limited to the issues in status "Backlog", limited to "key" field and limited to 1 record using maxResults – since the filter is ordered by rank, that record should be the topmost on your board backlog

3. Use the webhook response variable for that record to access the "key" property and transition that issue from Backlog to To do.

• REST request to get records from a filter limited by additional parameters = https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-questions/JIRA-REST-API-how-to-retrieve-issues-of-a-specific-status-under/qaq-p/961227#M309237
• Parameter to limit max results: https://community.developer.atlassian.com/t/how-to-set-the-maxresults-attribute-in-jira-rest-api/14205/3
• How to access values in a web request action: https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Marketplace-Apps-Integrations/Can-I-use-automation-for-Jira-to-make-a-web-request-and-set-a/qaq-p/1415072

If you do try this out and it works, let us know. Good luck! :)