Set up Jira Software Cloud
Learn how to set up Jira Software Cloud and integrate it with other products and applications.
Configure swimlanes
This page is for company-managed projects
If the lower-left of your service project sidebar says you're in a team-managed project, check out these team-managed project articles instead.
Learn more about the difference between company-managed and team-managed projects.
A swimlane is a horizontal categorization of issues in the Active sprints of a Scrum board, or on a Kanban board. You can use swimlanes to help you distinguish tasks of different categories, such as workstreams, users, application areas, etc.
Before you begin
To configure the board and any of its settings, you must be either:
a project administrator for the location of the board
a board administrator for the board itself
See Permissions overview for more information.
Choosing a different type of swimlane
You can choose to set up your swimlanes in a variety of ways, as shown in the following table.
Swimlanes categories | Description |
|---|---|
Stories | One parent issue per swimlane (i.e. each swimlane contains all of the parent's sub-tasks), with issues that have no sub-tasks appearing below. |
Queries | One JQL query per swimlane (see below for examples). By default, two swimlanes will be created:
You may want to create additional swimlanes that map to other values of your Jira 'Priority' field, or use a different field to categorize your swimlanes. |
Assignees | One assignee per swimlane, with unassigned issues appearing either above or below the swimlanes (your choice). |
Epics | One epic per swimlane. Issues that don't belong to an epic are grouped below the swimlanes. Any epics that aren’t part of the board's current filter will be hidden from the board. If you want to change the order of the swimlanes on your board, navigate to the Backlog of the board, and drag and drop the epics as desired. |
Projects | One project for each swimlane, with issues displaying below their respective projects. |
No swimlanes | No horizontal categorization of issues in the Active sprints of a Scrum board, or on a Kanban board. |
To choose a different type of swimlane:
Go to your board, then select more () > Board settings.
Click the Swimlanes tab.
In the Base Swimlanes on menu, select either Queries, Stories, Assignees, Epics, Projects or No Swimlanes, as described above.
Modifying your query-based swimlanes
If your swimlanes are based on JQL queries (rather than on stories or assignees), you can create, delete, or change them:
Go to your board, then select more () > Board settings.
Click the Swimlanes tab.
If your swimlanes are based on queries, you can edit your swimlanes, as described in the following table and the screenshot above.
Add a new swimlane | In the blue area, type the name, JQL, and optional description, then click the Add button. Your new swimlane is added in the top swimlane position. |
Change the name of a swimlane | Click in the name area of the swimlane, modify the existing name, and click the Update button. |
Change the JQL of a swimlane | Click in the JQL area of the swimlane, modify the existing JQL, and click the Update button. See the examples below for some suggestions. For information on JQL syntax, see JQL (Jira admin documentation). Note, the JQL 'ORDER BY' clause is not used by the swimlane, as it defaults to order by rank. |
Delete a swimlane | Click the Delete button at the right of the swimlane. |
Move a swimlane | Hover over the vertical 'grid' icon, then drag and drop the swimlane up or down to its new position. |
Example JQL queries for your swimlanes
Show all issues that belong to a particular component, e.g. 'User Interface'
Show all issues that are due in the next 24 hours
Show all issues that have a particular priority
And
To learn more about how information is displayed within columns in each swimlane, including mapping multiple statuses to columns, see Configure columns.
Need help? If you can't find the answer you need in our documentation, we have other resources available to help you. See Getting help.
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