How to sort the cards on Kanban board by priority?

[Deleted user]

Hi, community!

I have a Kanban board like this https://i.imgur.com/oyojm6v.png. Problem is I can't find how to sort the cards by priority. High priority cards should be in top, low priority in bottom

Could you please help me?

[Jack Brickey]

you can change your board's filter to sort by priority, e.g.

project = my project order by priority DESC

the actual order is governed by how you have them listed in the admin section, e.g. Highest, High, Medium, Low, Lowest

note that if you are currently using Ranking for rank your issues then this will be disrupted.

another consideration would be to use swimlanes by priority or card colors by priority.

[Jake Levi]

How do I change the filter to sort by priority?

[Jack Brickey]

If Classic project click on the ellipses in top right and select Board settings > general

[JD Lobue]

Is there a way to have Rank ASC, and priority DESC so that the PO can order the cards on the column on the board as well as have priority be the default order on the board?

[Jack Brickey]

add the below to the board filter

order by rank ASC, priority DESC

try and LMK results. i have never personally attempted.

[JD Lobue]

Nope...does not work.

[JD Lobue]

So, there is not a way to have Rank ASC, and priority DESC so that the PO can order the cards on the column on the board as well as have priority be the default order on the board?

[Darrel Jackson]

Sort by Rank is a unique sort so adding any subsequent sort criteria won’t do anything.

You can sort by priority DESC, rank ASC.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

But there is the problem that (sort by anything other than rank) is useless?

[JD Lobue]

Don't think we were speaking to lack of value. Of course there is value and it is not useless. I was merely asking if there was a way to have Rank ASC, and priority DESC so that the PO can order the cards on the column on the board as well as have priority be the default order on the board, and apparently there is not. I see there being more value to being able to do this than not do this. That is all!

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Priority should be used to inform ranking, but it's not useful as a sort order in a backlog.  It's got uses in other places, but not in a backlog.

The point of a backlog is that you rank items - you decide which ones are more important than others, putting them in a precise order.  Priority can certainly help you with that, but it is not ranking and hence no use in a backlog. 

If you have 20 "top priority" issues, which is at the top of the to-do list?  Priority can't tell you that.

If you have 20 "top priority" issues, one of which depends on an issue that is currently "low priority", you're stuck.  Either the priority on the dependency is wrong, or the issue with the dependency is the wrong priority.  And even if you gave them the same priority, you still don't know which one you should do first.

You could have "Rank ASC, priority DESC" in theory, but it is completely useless.  The rank is effectively unique, so the "priority desc" would do nothing - there's only one issue to sort by priority within each rank level.

[JD Lobue]

Nic, as a community leader, I realize you want to support the product, and that is admirable. This is not for the product backlog. It is for the sprint backlog on the board. There is no such thing as 20 top issues. There can only be 1 top issue (and issue is not the correct term, btw, for product or sprint backlog items). It is not completely useless if you are a product owner, the team has committed / forecasted their sprint, and the product owner wants the team to work on their highest ranked item when a team member has capacity to pull the top item. Rank and priority could work here. If I have three priority = 3 and 1 of those is the one that the PO wants to have show up higher on the to do column within the sprint backlog so that the team worked on that first, why wouldn't we want to be able to have that in the sprint backlog? Not the product backlog, mind you.....the sprint backlog.

[Dan Loeppky]

I agree with JD here. I too would love to see secondary sorting using the rank. This would allow for default grouping and then the secondary user-defined ordering.

[Darrel Jackson]

@dan 

If I understand what you're asking for, this is supported. You can sort by Priority then by Rank. You just can't sort by Rank then Priority since Rank is a unique sort so Priority would be ignored.

@JD Lobue 

I think you're asking for the same thing, if I'm not mistaken? You want the highest Priority issues in the backlog first. Then you want issues with the same Priority ranked relative to each other. You can sort by Priority then by Rank.

However, as @Nic Brough -Adaptavist- says there are many more things that determine the backlog ranking (whether Product or Sprint) than simple Priority. Nic used the example of dependencies. Another example is when using WSJF (i.e. you factor in size so a small, medium priority thing would be worked on before a large, high priority thing). Or maybe you tackle the riskiest issue first as that is the most likely to put the sprint off track. Why tie yourself down to Priority when Rank does that but better?

[Dan Loeppky]

@Darrel Jackson I don't disagree with any particular point. In fact, I do agree that priority is not the best nor the only way to prioritize work. However, in my current use case, I am using priority as the primary prioritization key, which is why I would like to order by priority and then apply a manual sort within those issues of equal priority.

The main purpose for this is so that when I am looking for all issues of the same priority, I don't have to go searching through the entire backlog to find them all so that they can be ranked and moved onto the board.

That said, I have my board filter query set as described and I get errors that I cannot rank issues as the board is not ordered by RANK ASC. Below is a screenshot from my board settings, but to allow order by rank, rank must be the first order by value, which then renders all following values useless.

If this is supposed to work and I am doing something wrong, I would greatly appreciate a solution.

--edit--

I should also add that clicking on "Add Rank" states that it will add the order by rank and remove all other order by sorting.

[Darrel Jackson]

@Dan Loeppky 

True, you're right. It will give you the correct sort but then it won't let you drag and drop ranking, which is probably not what you're looking for. My apologies for putting you wrong.

The best way to do what you want is to order by Rank and then add Swimlanes by Query where you group the priorities into different swimlanes.

Note that the default Kanban view which has "Expedite" in it is exactly that. It is a Swimlane with a Query where "Expedite" is "Priority = Highest" and the default sort by Rank. It will let you drag and drop within a swimlane but not across swimlanes (seeing as drag and drop affects Rank, not Priority).

I do note that Priority is clearly visible on the card so perhaps sorting by Rank and then setting your Rank factoring in Priority is the way to go on this one.

[Dan Loeppky]

I am currently using swimlanes based on specific components. We have a pretty small team right now, so rather than many projects/boards, just one project/board and categorizing by component to make it easier to find their work.

I may have to rethink my strategy a bit.

Thanks so much for confirming! If there is a feature request to allow multiple sorts while using ranking, I would love to upvote it.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

I'm afraid all the feature requests for "multiple sorts" have been closed with not just "won't do", but "can't do".  You can only use ranking if the list you are working with is ordered by ranking. 

Because the rank is unique, and priority is not, ordering by priority stops you from ranking.  It's not a function of the UI or the implementation, it's a mathematical reality.

There are ways to work with it of course.

Starting with your existing board, with a board filter ordered by rank only (so that ranking is possible) and swimlanes by components, I would suggest creating a second board, with the same filter, but as Darryl suggests, swimlanes done by priority.  You can then rank within each priority on that board, and the changes will be reflected within your main working board. 

I'd suggest also having quick-filters and/or card colours on the priority-ranking board for the component, so you can see that quickly.

I'd also put quick filters for each priority on the main board, so that you can rank within priority on the main board, ignoring the either priorities.

[Darrel Jackson]

By default Kanban boards sort by Rank (i.e. top of the list is top priority). So you don't need to maintain an explicit Priority field unless you are managing priority outside of a board (e.g. you have an external incident/defect management tool which is used for prioritisation). If you definitely need an explicit Priority field, go with what Jack said.

[JD Lobue]

I'm not sure how this answers my question:  Is there a way to have Rank ASC and Priority ASC?

[Todd Stephan]

Looking for this as well - I set the board filter to order by rank ASC, priority DESC but it then doesn't allow you to drag within the swimlane.  I was expecting it to allow me to order within the same priority. 

[Darrel Jackson]

Rank is a unique sort. Any sort after Rank won’t have the effect you’re looking for. It’s a bit like sorting by Key then sorting by something else - once you’ve applied the first sort the subsequent sorts don’t have any effect. You could sort by priority and then by rank.

Priority and Rank are effectively doing the same thing.

[Todd Stephan]

I ended up creating swimlanes for each priority level and then I can drag and drop by rank as needed.

[Aleksander Altberg]

As usual, awful UX.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Have a re-read of Darrel's point from 2021.  It's not a "awful UX" to have something that actually works with the reality of your data.

[Aleksander Altberg]

The fact this article even exists is proof that the system provided to set this up is non-intuitive and therefore bad UX.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Ok, so let me change the question, to get a different viewpoint. 

How would you improve the UX?

[Darrel Jackson]

"The fact this article even exists is proof that the system provided to set this up is non-intuitive and therefore bad UX."

I disagree. The tool is general purpose and quite powerful. Many customers have varied, specific requirements. There are many ways to solve different problems and these discussions are worth having in community articles so you get a variety of views.

Bear in mind these are specific questions for specific use cases. In this scenario the more general question is essentially "What are my options for display of prioritisation in Kanban boards" and there are a variety of options: order by Rank, order Priority or both using swimlanes.

[SarahB]

The fact that the article exists and there are viable solutions from the responses to the question, is proof of good UX - Jira can be used for almost any industry therefore Jira provides users the flexibility to tailor the UX to suit their needs... which is also proof of an even better understanding of their users. 

It's only a bad UX for those who are limited in their ability to think outside the box.