Enabling Rank field

[Audra Bonacki]

I found a page on Atlassian documentation about enabling Ranking but it doesn't work. Here's the link to the page. https://confluence.atlassian.com/jirasoftwarecloud/enabling-ranking-764477994.html

Any advice?

[Oman Costa]

No, you can't see that in the card layout on your board. 
But it is "somehow" visible for your team, it reflects the position of the issues on your board.

--Duplicated, sorry -- 

[Audra Bonacki]

where is it visible to the team?

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

It's the position of the cards on your board.

You can technically add the rank field to a screen and see the content.  But stuff like 01|@----00101 really does not tell your users a lot.

[Oman Costa]

The position of the issues in the board is alredy the Rank. Of course one must make sure that the board is using something like "ORDER BY Rank ASC" at end of the Board's Filter Query

[Audra Bonacki]

Ok, thank you!! They were trying to figure out if there's a way to rank the order in which they want the developers to work on the tickets but perhaps this is not the right tool to do that.

[Jack Brickey]

actually i use Rank for that purpose and it works well. as long as you order the filter by rank it then becomes a stacked rank list. Each assignee can then know which to work next as it will be on the top of their list.

[Oman Costa]

Hi Audra,

But that's exactly the purpose of Ranking in the Board. As Jack said the developers can easily see which task they should work next because you can order then in the board.
Moreover, the Rank is not only board-related. If you have 2 boards that prehaps shows the same tickets, they will follow the same rank that you defined
It uses the same principle of prioritizing stories or tickets using post-its on a real board, for example.

Again, it is just a matter of drag-and-drop your ticket to prioritize it, it is definitely usable for developer teams or any team that needs prioritized backlog

[Audra Bonacki]

But it sounds like JIRA orders them no? 

[Audra Bonacki]

as I mentioned earlier, when I type order or rank int he JQL box, no options come up. 

[Oman Costa]

But that's the meaning. You order based on the priority. If you want your team to work first in the ticket XPTO you simple drag-and-drop this ticket on the top of the column, so everybody of the team will know that XPTO has high priority.

You must edit your Filter Query placing "ORDER BY Rank ASC" at the end. 

[Oman Costa]

You need to have something like that on your board configuration

[Jack Brickey]

[Audra Bonacki]

This is what's in the query. 

[Jack Brickey]

@Audra Bonacki, can you try to add " ASC" to the end of your query?

[Audra Bonacki]

Ok, did that.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

For what it's worth, just typing "rank" into the search definition is not going to help.  "order by rank" is what you need.

[Audra Bonacki]

yes, that has been added to the board query. what am I supposed to be seeing now? The team wants to see 1,2,3,4 etc... but it seems that is not what JIRA can/will show.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

As discussed before, the rank is an order for issues, not an absolute number.

Many years ago, it was an absolute number, and that was a nightmare.  Imagine you have 1, 2, 3, 4, and want to rank a new issue as 2.  You have to move 3 and 4 down the list.  No problem, right?  Now imagine you have 250,000 issues.  Of course, Greenpepper dodged that a bit by doing ranking in 10s and then re-ranking less, but it was still not working.

Anyway, your 1, 2, 3, 4 is there, it's the order of the cards on your board.

[Oman Costa]

I guess you didn't get what I'm trying to say.

Now that you have configured the Ranking on your board, let's suppose the following scenario:

All your tickets are in the "To Do" column and you want to prioritize the tickets
You Have the Ticket C, Z, H.
H has the highest priority, so you drag-and-drop it to the top of the column.
Z needs to be done right after H, so you drag-and-drop it to the second position.

Then you have this:
H

Z

C

The visual position is already the Rank. So H - 1, Z - 2, C- 3

Your team doesn't need to see numbers when they clearly can see that the position of the tickets on your board IS already the priority.

Just to be clear, your changes in the rank of the ticket will be always visible to everybody that uses your board. When you drag-and-drop a issue, Jira changes the "Ranking" field internally already. That's the reason why you need to order your board based on the Ranking field.

[Audra Bonacki]

Yes, it could be a bloody mess for sure. I was against it but wanted to verify my suspicions before I went back to the team. Thanks all for your assistance and advice!! 

[Oman Costa]

Hi Audra,

To be able to help you, I would need more informations regarding your problem.

Could you explain me your scenario(Permissions, etc..) and what you are doing specifically?

Technically if you have your board well configured and also if you have the Edit Issues + Schedule Issues permission, you would be able to rank it without problems.

[Audra Bonacki]

Hi Oman, I'm trying to enable ranking. When I look at Field Configurations, Rank is locked even though the Default Screen is listed. According to the Atlassian Documentation, on the board, I should see 3 dots. I do not. I am a JIRA Admin so I have all permissions. The board is an existing board, I did not set it up. 

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

If the rank field exists and is locked, then all you need to do is use "order by rank" in your board filter.

[Oman Costa]

Do you want to change Ranking manually? The rank functionallity is internal and it happens when you simply arrange your issues on your board, placing a important issue on the top of the backlog or board's column (for example).
Strange that you can't see the Board Settings. As JIRA Admin you are able to edit all boards.
Isn't it on the top right of your board's screen? If you have a Scrum Board, this option is also visible on the Backlog screen.
Ex:

[Audra Bonacki]

To Nick, I tried that, it did not work. When I type in the JQL order or even "order with quotes, no options populate. When I type Rank, I get these 2 options 

To Oman, the team would need to enter the rank manually and also want to know if once a ranked ticket is completed, does the next one automatically move up? I do not have 3 dots on the backlog or active sprints pages.

[Oman Costa]

Oh sorry, I should've asked your Jira version first. On your Jira version you just need to click on the "Board" button and then "Configure"
The rank is always based on relative issues from the project, your team doesn't need to edit it manually, since it is just a matter of drag-and-drop. 

[Audra Bonacki]

Ok, but they'd like to see a rank number like 1,2,3,4, etc... Does JIRA not allow for that to be visible?

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Try

order by Rank

That should sort out the filter.  Then try the "board" drop-down and look for configure board

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

The ranking is not as simple as 1,2,3... it's a relative thing called "lexorank", and the data in it does not make a lot of sense to humans.

[Audra Bonacki]

Dang, my company only hired humans LOL

[Oman Costa]

No, you can't see that in the card layout on your board. 
But it is "somehow" visible for your team, it reflects the position of the issues on your board.