How to order swimlanes by Epic on a Kanban or SCRUM board
Platform Notice: Data Center Only - This article only applies to Atlassian products on the Data Center platform.
Note that this KB was created for the Data Center version of the product. Data Center KBs for non-Data-Center-specific features may also work for Server versions of the product, however they have not been tested. Support for Server* products ended on February 15th 2024. If you are running a Server product, you can visit the Atlassian Server end of support announcement to review your migration options.
*Except Fisheye and Crucible
Summary
When using swimlanes in a Kanban or SCRUM board, sometimes the order in which the swimlanes appear is not desired. It is not immediately clear how the ordering works, since it's not possible to drag and drop the swimlanes themselves to re-order them. The solution below explores re-ordering for Epic swimlanes.
Solution
Kanban Board
Go to the Kanban board for which you wish to re-order swimlanes by epic
In the top right hand corner, click Board > Configure
Navigate to the Columns menu and make sure that the Kanban backlog is enabled (by dragging a status into the Kanban backlog column on the far left), and that the Epic Panels setting is enabled, as illustrated in the screenshot below:
Navigate to the Swimlanes menu and set Base Swimlanes on to Epic
Go to the Kanban backlog page, click on the EPICS panel to show the list of Epics, and then re-order the Epics in the desired order. For example, in the example below, we are re-ordering the Epic "Epic 1" under "Epic 2":
Go to the Kanban board page, and verify that the swimlanes are now following the Epic order:
SCRUM Board
Go to the SCRUM board for which you wish to re-order swimlanes by epic
In the top right hand corner, click Board > Configure
Navigate to the Swimlanes menu and set Base Swimlanes on to Epic
Go to the SCRUM board backlog page, click on the EPICS panel to show the list of Epics, and then re-order the Epics in the desired order. For example, in the example below, we are re-ordering the Epic "Epic 1" under "Epic 2":
Navigate to the active sprint page, and verify that the swimlanes are now following the Epic order:
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