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How your plan sorts issues

This page refers to the advanced planning features that are only available as part of Jira Software Cloud Premium and Enterprise.

We have a separate section for documentation about the project timeline that’s included in all Jira Software projects. Go to the documentation for project-level roadmaps in Jira Software.

Regardless of how you sort issues in your plan, the following will always be true:

  • The order of issues is determined by the sorting method, and overrules any drag-and-drop adjustments you make to your plan.

  • Issues are sorted based on the highest hierarchy level shown in your timeline. Child issues are grouped under their parent issue.

  • Issues in your plan are sorted by the field of your choice, regardless of changes you make to other fields.

  • Newly created issues are sorted according to your defined sorting rule.

Beyond these rules, there are also specific logic that only applies when sorting by certain variables.

Dates

To add custom dates to your plan, they need to be configured in your plan. Learn how to configure which dates are used in your plan.

There are three dates by which you can sort your issues: target datesdue dates, or custom dates. These different dates are all treated the same way in your plan, so we simply refer to them as dates.

When sorting issues by dates, keep the following rules in mind:

  • Sprint dates will be used if an issue doesn’t have a start or end date but is assigned to a sprint.

  • Adjusting the dates of issues will change how these issues are sorted in your plan.

Estimates

Regardless of whether you’re using story points or time estimates (days and hours), the following rules apply:

  • Issues without an estimate will be sorted as though they have an estimate of zero.

  • Issues that have rolled-up estimate values will be sorted by the total estimate value of a parent issue plus its children.

  • If you change the estimation units of your plan, issues will revert to the default sorting order.

Status

When you sort issues by status, the following rules apply:

  • Issues will be sorted by status within their parent hierarchy level. Issues with the same status type will be ordered alphabetically.

  • Issues created in your plan that haven’t been saved to Jira Software are sorted above those already saved when in ascending order.

Assignees and teams

Unassigned issues will be grouped together at the top or bottom of your plan, depending on whether you’re using ascending or descending order.

 

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