How to use Automation to set board Rank based on ticket priority..??

[Drew Angell]

I have a single board with lots of different projects, and I'm using the Priority field of these tickets accordingly.

On the Board, though, I have to drag items around to rank them in their true priority related to our Board.

I would like to setup an automation rule so that any ticket created or updated to High Priority is automatically assigned a high rank so that it will show up at the top of the Board swimlane.

I'm finding lots of confusing info on this.  Some looks like it's possible, and some looks like you can't do it.  I'm getting lost in it.

Any information on this would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks!

[Bill Sheboy]

Hi @Drew Angell 

You can set the Rank with the REST API, but not yet with the automation features of JIRA.  Please see the linked information below:

Rank Issues with API: https://docs.atlassian.com/jira-software/REST/7.3.1/?&_ga=2.19793790.774659241.1593439862-699305148.1591885873#agile/1.0/issue-rankIssues 

Action to rank issues to top: https://codebarrel.atlassian.net/browse/AUT-919 

You *could* change how you order order to use something other than Rank, but that seems like a bad idea.  Rank's numbering scheme (LexoRank) solves lots of problems with insertion/deletion/move in the middle of a list, and using another value would require to solve those on your own.  Please see here for more information about LexoRank:

Troubleshooting New Ranking System Issues: https://confluence.atlassian.com/jirakb/troubleshooting-new-ranking-system-issues-779159221.html 

Best regards,

Bill

[Drew Angell]

I guess I could setup a simple service to do that, and then hit that service from Automation.  Might be more work than is worth it, though.

Thanks for the info. 

[Bill Sheboy]

How about a work-around?  You could create swim lanes based upon quick filters on Priority, and put the high priority stuff in the first lane and everything else below.  As long as you do not have too many highest priority items, people can see what is happening. 

(Having too many highest priority things is a different problem to solve  :^)

[Drew Angell]

Ha, yes, that's exactly the sort of thing I'm running into.  We have lots of software plugins we manage, so we have different projects for each one.  Within each product we have priority, of course.

All of these projects go onto a single "Big Board", though, so that I can easily manage all of them together.  When I do this, though, all of the high priority stuff is just sort of random.

Not sure I fully understand your work-around here.  Is there a guide specific to that sort of thing you could point me to?

[Bill Sheboy]

Hi, Drew.

Here is the documentation for swim lane configuration:

https://support.atlassian.com/jira-software-cloud/docs/configure-swimlanes/

What I am suggesting is that you configure your "Big Board" to use swim lanes, by queries.  Make the first lane's query something like: priority = Highest

As needed, add additional lane queries.  Any items not matching the queries get collected at the bottom of the board.

[Brock Jolet]

Thanks for this thread. I've been using a JPD project which automatically ranks new items at the top. I was able to use Bill's suggestion to create an Automation rule that finds the lowest-ranked item in the project and uses an API call to move the current issue below that lowest issue.

/rest/agile/1.0/issue/rank

{
"issues": [
"{{issue.key}}"
],
"rankAfterIssue": "{{lowestRankedKey}}",
"rankCustomFieldId": 10019
}

[Robert Klohr]

There is an open feature request [JRACLOUD-77117] Action to rank issues to the top where you can add your vote.