Is it possible to reorder subtasks in the To Do column of a Kanban board as to show priority?

[Samantha Mann]

A project at my company is using a Kanban board to track work items. Currently the board is using the following filter: parentEpic = IssueKey AND type = Sub-task ORDER BY backlog ASC.

The parentEpic and type filters cannot change, as this is the data that needs to be shown on the board. However, it is my understanding, that a Kanban board uses the To Do column as the backlog and the Project Lead wants to order the sub-tasks in the To Do column in whatever order he sees fit to create a prioritized list. Is it possible to drag and drop individual Story sub-tasks to a desired location in the To Do column? If so, how?

[Bill Sheboy · Accepted solution]

Hi @Samantha Mann -- Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

Drag-and-drop reordering of issues, of any type, works when the board's filter has ORDER BY Rank ASC.  No other sort orders support this as drag-and-drop is impacting ranking.

Best regards,
Bill

[Samantha Mann]

Hey @Bill Sheboy,

Thanks for the welcome and for your reply.

We did use the ORDER BY Rank ASC query in the board's filter and it let us drag and drop to reorder parent issues and children issues within the parent, but we were not able to take an individual Sub-task out of the associated Story to rank it separate from the group. For example, there is Story A ranked #1 and Story B ranked # 2 with sub-tasks C, D, and E. We want to move Sub-task C to the #1 rank, but leave Sub-tasks D and E where they are. We are unable to achieve this with the ORDER BY Rank ASC query.

Any further thoughts or tips?

Thanks,

Samantha

[Bill Sheboy]

Yup, that sounds correct as the parent always provides the context for the way Jira boards show sub-tasks. 

I believe you can only do what you ask if only sub-tasks were shown on the board using the filter, although I have not tried that...and it may not be very helpful losing the parent context.

[Samantha Mann]

Thanks for your help, Bill!

[Bill_P]

If by reordering subtask you mean subtasks across separate stories you cannot do it on the board if the main story is not in the same column. you can go to the backlog reorder the stories and the subtasks or defects in the To do Column will match the order of the stories in the backlog.

Assuming you have the above ORDER BY Rank ASC set.