How can I set up rules related to Issue order when moving between columns?

[matias.hilaire]

Every time I move an Issue from one Column to the next one in the workflow, the issue ends up at the bottom of the Column which makes it difficult to find later on as we are working with Kanban boards that sometimes have many issues in each column.

Is there a way to set a rule that whenever an issue is moved from one column to the next that it could be placed at the top of the column? Even better, can issues be ordered automatically from top to bottom depending on last action? (let's say I write a comment in one of those issues, it would be good to have it at the top of the column after that as it would help as well on our Lead tracking board.

Thanks! 

[John Funk · Accepted solution]

Hi Matias,

A couple of questions first - why would you want the card to move to the top of the list - ahead of cards already in that column? One of the mainstays of Kanban is that you once you commit to doing work (i.e. start it) then you should finish it as quickly as possible. This is also known as First In, First Out or FIFO. 

The reason there are classes of service in Kanban or Priority as labeled in Jira is that there are rare cases where a card entering the board needs to move at a faster rate than the others, So, it is not 100% FIFO. 

But having the board automatically move all cards that enter a column to the top of the column is not good practice in my opinion. 

Now, having said all of that, you can actually put an order by at the end of the filter which will cards to follow that order in each column. That can be based on any field associated with your issue - Due Date, Priority, etc. But I don't believe last action would qualify. 

Normally, they just follow the rank associated with the card when it entered the board - that's why new cards go to the bottom, because they have been on the board a lesser amount of time. Rank in Jira is complicated, and I wouldn't mess with it much. 

Your other option is to create Quick Filters that will easily display the cards you are looking for so they don't get lost. 

Finally, you should not have so many issues in a column that you cannot find what you are working on - that breaks the tenet of Work In Progress (WIP) limits for Kanban. 

I hope that helps some - I think you probably have more issues than just that the cards go to the bottom. 

[matias.hilaire]

Thanks @John Funk  for taking the time to give me such a detailed answer.

We migrated from Trello to JIRA a month ago and you guessed correctly "I have more issues than just that the cards go to the bottom" ;).

The problem is that in some boards they go to the bottom, in others to the middle and others to the top and I guess it has to do with @laralg 's explanation about rank. It would be good to set up rules that would help to stabilize that.

Why I need for tasks with recent activity at the top? (comments or that have been moved from one column to the other).
Basically I have this problem when using a board for Lead Tracking (which is one of the templates available when creating a Project). For the rest I prefer for task to always move to the bottom, but as I mentioned is not always the case.

In the Lead tracking board sometimes I have 20 or 30 issues in one column and is very usefull to have the more recent ones on top in order to find which potential clients we might be forgetting about.

I'm sure I read somewhere before migrating that it was an actual capability that could be set up in JIRA but now I can't even find the Order by option.

If you could share with me a link that could help me understand how to set it up I would be extremely grateful.

Thanks!

[John Funk]

Thanks for the explanation, Matias. The order by part goes on the end of the Filter associated with the board. You might consider sorting by Created  - something like:

project = ABC ORDER BY created DESC

That should push the most recently created cards to the top of each column. But again, it won't be based on last action. And the other drawback is that it applies to all columns on the board. You can't have different sorts for each column. 

So, click on the Board settings link. Then when you get to Settings, click on General.

Then click on Edit Filter Query - which will take to the Issue Navigator with the query pulled up. At the end of the query, add the Order by part above. You might already have ORDER BY Rank ASC or something like that - you just need to replace Rank with Created DESC

[laralg]

Hello @matias.hilaire ,

Without going over John's reasoning which is really good. I will give you the technical answer. Issues in Jira are ordered by something called Rank, this a customfield that you cannot see usually ( there are ways to getting it in the view screen) and it looks like a gibberish of letters and number because this orders all the issues in the platform.

The way I see it the only way to achieve what you want was in some way, mess up with this field so it orders the issue higher up everytime it goes into a column. However I do not recomend it, as I said this field is global and if this issue shows up in two boards you will be messing with its rank in another board.
The way I see it you will have to be carefull and drag your issues to the top always, or have a way to rank the issues everytime you transition ( with some flag method). Or just order by updated date, we assume that if you have just transition in then it it may be the last you touched.

Best Regards

[matias.hilaire]

Thanks!