Sorting sotries under timeline view

[Alex Lee]

Hi community,

I have recently started using timeline view in jira to manage my product roadmap and I find it extremely helpful to present it to business stakeholder as well as showing to the dev team on what is coming in our way.

I do have a question around sorting the stories under an epic, I am under the impression that the stories under the epic is sorted by the issue key, however, is there a way that we can configure so that the stories are sorted based on the order in the backlog?

We often create the user stories and define the dependencies with the team, then we reorder the backlog based on the dependencies, however, this order is not reflected in the timeline view.

Thanks,

Alex

[Trudy Claspill · Accepted solution]

Hello @Alex Lee 

Your post tags indicate you are using a Premium subscription, which includes Advanced Roadmaps.

Are you using the Timeline available under an AR Plan, or are you using the basic Timeline feature available from the left-side navigation pane when you are viewing a board?

If you are using the basic Timeline feature then the stories under an Epic will appear in Rank order. Looking at the Backlog screen it is not obvious how all the stories in a given Epic are ranked, as some may be in the backlog issue list while others are on the board in various columns. The rank of an issue is relative to other issues and does not consider the Status of the issue nor whether it is on a board on in a backlog list.

To see the true ranking of all child issues in a given Epic you would need to go to the Issues screen and execute a filter to retrieve all the child issues of the Epic and order them by rank.

[Alex Lee]

Hi @Trudy Claspill , Thanks to your reply. I am using both the Advanced Roadmap and the basic timeline view depending on what stakeholder that I need to present to. So both of them are quite important. However, I would say I am using the basic timeline view more as it's more handy on the left manual which I can also apply quick filters on my board.

What I get out from your response is.....the order of the issue sorted under an Epic is based on rank, and we have no way to alter the sort order by other fields. If so, are you aware if there is a feature request which I can add my vote on for Atlassian product team to consider?

Also, I don't seem to be able to find the field "Rank" in an issue (e.g. story/bug). so what would be the best way for me as a product owner to help aligning these rank based on the order that I've sorted in the backlog? What I would like to achieve is, to show a timeline view where the child issues under an Epic are sorted by priority, which is the way that we order our backlog. Thanks.

Appreciate your help.

Cheers,

Alex

[Trudy Claspill]

Hello @Alex Lee 

The Rank field stores a value that does not provide meaningful information to a user. It is set by Jira and the value is generated programmatically as you drag and drop issues in backlogs, timelines, and in boards.

It is a hexidecimal value (I believe) and the Rank of any given issue is relative to other issues, and applies globally across the instance. If issue A is ranked higher than issue B in a given board, then in any board that shows those two issue A will be higher than B.

This is not a field that you can effectively or should try to edit directly.

For your board are you working with a Team Managed project or a Company Managed project?

The basic Timeline reflects the content of the board you are viewing. The ordering of child issues in the basic Timeline will reflect the ORDER BY clause used in the Filter Query for the board.

If the Filter Query is set to ORDER BY Rank, then you have the ability to drag and drop issues to reorder them in the backlog, on the board, and in the Timeline itself. If you change the ORDER BY clause to any other field (i.e. Priority) then you lose the ability to drag and drop issues to reorder them.

You do not have the option to disconnect the order of issues in the basic Timeline from the order of the issues in the associated board.

I am not specifically aware of a change request around this topic, but as a subscriber to a paid plan you could reach out directly to Atlassian Support to ask them is such a CR exists.

Note that you do have the ability to change the order (Sort by) option in the View Settings for an AR Plan.

[Alex Lee]

Hi Trudy,

Apologies for the late reply, thank you for all the information you had listed, that is helpful.

Thank you.

Cheers

Alex

[Trudy Claspill]

Hello Alex,

If your questions have been satisfactorily addressed please consider marking the Answer as Accepted.