Ordering Jira connector by rank

Rob Sandberg

We want to be able to display in smartsheets our backlog by rank. Meaning we want it displayed in the order the product owner has arranged it in. We also need to use JQL to get the detail we need. Here is the query that works as expected in Jira:

project = HU AND issuetype = Story AND resolution = Unresolved AND (Sprint = EMPTY OR Sprint not in (openSprints(), futureSprints())) ORDER BY rank

Note the attached screenshot. See how the connector prepends the query with:

project = 'HU' and (

then it appends it with:

) order by id

Is this typical behaviour? How can I get the the connector to respect the "order by rank" in the query?

Nathan Lloyd

Hi Rob,

At the moment the Jira Connector will default to ordering by id when using a custom JQL query and that can't be changed. As you've found the connector will prepend JQL filters with "project = [project key]" and append them with "order by id".

The best option to change how issues are organized in your sheets is to use the row grouping option in the Jira Connector, though there is still no option for sorting by rank. I did check to see if the rank field in Jira may be usable for row grouping as a workaround but it appears that rankings in Jira are really string values and not numerical, so it's unlikely this would work. You can read more about Jira's ranking system at this Managing LexoRank article.

One thing that would work would be to create a custom field in Jira that could have a rank number populated. Once issues were synced into Smartsheet, you could sort by the custom rank number values. Keep in mind though, that with automated workflows, as the backend Filtered Row Finder process runs, issues will be resorted into the original "order by id" state. Manual sorting will be maintained with manual workflows though if that is an option for you.

Please do feel free to submit an Enhancement Request for this so our product team can consider it for future development.

Best,

Nathan L.

John Buhler

Sorting by rank... exactly what I wanted to do.