How to sync Story ranks between Jira Align and Jira

Summary

The synchonization of ranking information for stories between Jira Align and Jira operates against the sprint. This article discusses how to adjust the ranks in Jira Align and synchronize the results into Jira.

Environment

Jira Align

Solution

There are 2 methods that can be used to change the story ranks in Jira Align and push that information into Jira, both methods have common initial requirements

Initial Requirements - Jira Software Configuration

• Ensure Jira Ranking is enabled per: Enable ranking

Jira Software automatically creates a custom field called Rank, of type Global Rank. Please ensure that your Jira instance contains only one custom field called Rank, and that the Rank field is assigned to the global context (i.e. not to specific issues or projects).

• Confirm the "Rank" field ID under: Settings > Issues > Custom Fields

  • search for 'Rank'

  • click 3 dots > View field information and find the id at the end of the URL… for example:

  

• Update the Project screen for Stories to make sure that Rank is one of the included fields

  • Settings > Issues > Screens > search for and Configured the story screen for the project

  • If not already included, add the Rank field

⚠️ The above steps are correct for Jira Cloud (at the time of article authoring) , Jira Server/Data Center may have different menu systems resulting in slightly different steps

Initial Requirements - Jira Align Configuration

• Set the following Connector setting with the Jira Rank custom field ID

• • Administration > Jira Settings > Jira Setup > Story and feature (jira epic) backlog rank custom field

    

• • ⚠️ The field value should be set with the <ID> only. NOT customfield_<ID>

Method 1

1. In Jira Align go to Team > choose your team > Backlog

2. Make sure PI and sprint are set correctly (Red arrows in below example)

3. Drag and drop the order of the stories within the sprint to set the ranks (Green arrow)

4. Click Pull Rank > Push Rank to the External System (Orange Arrows)

Then give time for the push to finish (if a the Pull Menu shows the Push and Pull options after a screen refresh then the push has finished) and then check the backlog for the sprint in your Jira Board it will now match:

Method 2:

1. In Jira Align go to Program > choose your program > Backlog

2. Make sure that Viewing: Story Backlog, and the correct PI, Team and Sprint are all set correctly (Red arrows in below example)

3. Drag and drop the order of the stories within the sprint to set the ranks (Green arrow)

4. Click Pull Rank > Push Rank to the External System (Orange Arrows) and give time for the push to finish

ℹ️ If needing to pull ranks from Jira then, adjust the story order in the Jira Sprint and use the menus shown in either of the above methods to chose Pull Rank from External System

Related Information:

The following System Role permissions are required to pull story ranks from an external system:

• • Stories

    • Team > Team > Backlog > Rank Items in External tools

    • Team > Manage > Stories > Save