How to Automate Backlog Prioritization Based on Jira Custom Fields

[#1]

With the Help of Foxly App and Automation Rules in Jira

Good day, community!

Today, let's talk about the power of automation...

Imagine having a backlog of 100 issues, 30% of which are high priority.

You create various types of custom fields to prioritise them further, input and update field values, then create multiple reports to filter out issues and order them by custom field values. 

What next? Export reports as CSV for the cross-report data analysis in Excel?  

There must be a better way to consolidate data and leverage all factors to define those highest-value backlog items that would bring you the most profit.

And there is!

You can save time and skip so many steps by setting automation between Jira and a backlog prioritization tool.

And so, groom your backlog directly in Jira to spot those low-hanging fruit right away.

Foxly is a plugin for Jira Cloud that allows you to assign the priority score to issues and carry out your backlog refinement directly in Jira.

Foxly calculates the priority score for you: 

• Allows you to focus on metrics that matter most for your project, e.g. time urgency, impact, or task size.
  
  
• Helps align your team and stakeholders on the latest priorities and let them see the WHY behind. 
  
  
• Lets you involve everyone you need in the Jira backlog prioritization process and generate priority matrices for weekly management meeting.

Yet, a lot of manual work is required to update both priority metrics in Foxly and issue custom fields. 

This is how you can automate your backlog prioritization in Jira with Foxly and Automation rules. 

Let’s say you want to sync the value of a custom priority metric, e.g. Issue Age, and a custom data field of your issues.

It can be done in 4 steps:

1. Create a special metric in Foxly to count in your priority scoring
2. Add the metric to one of the predefined priority scoring formulas
3. Map a Jira custom field to new priority metric in Foxly
4. Create Automation rules to enable simultaneous backlog prioritization updates!

Now, let’s take a look at each of the automation steps.

In order to add a custom metric to issue priority scoring in Foxly:

• Navigate to Foxly 'Customize' settings, and choose one of 5 predefined Priority templates, e.g. ICE (or you can create your own)
  
  
• Add a new Metric, e.g. Issue Age, and select Metric values, e.g. Number
  
  
• Tick the checkbox 'Store values in custom field'
  
  
• And add this new Custom metric to the scoring formula, like this👇

Next, we map a custom field in Jira to the new priority metric:

• Navigate to Project settings > Automation
  
  
• Click 'Create a rule', select a trigger 'Field value changed', then search and select the Jira custom field you need, and Save.
  
  
• As a new action, select 'Edit issue', and go to 'More options'
  
  
• Add Foxly custom Field Name or [ID + metric value] in JSON in the 'Additional fields' section.

Set this Automation rule for each issue priority metric you want to focus on, and the Jira custom field you need to track.

And every time your team changes this field in Jira,
the priority score table in Foxly will update automatically!

 
There are more types of automation, you can create to make your backlog prioritization seamless and efficient. 

🎥 Watch a video on How to connect story points field to Effort/Ease metric in Foxly.

How can Foxly help with your backlog prioritization? 

🦊 Schedule a live Foxly demo with us to share your specific case;

🧑‍💻 Or try Foxly in your Jira today!

⭐️ There's a free trial, and the app is Free for teams up to 10 users.

[Marin Varvodic]

Hi Foxly team, this would be a great match with our Custom Field Suite app. Prioritization is something all Jira users need.