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Jira Backlog Order by Priority

Jira backlog ordering by priority has been one of the most requested features since 2008, with hundreds of users demanding native priority sorting for both Jira Cloud and Server. This guide provides 8 solutions using built-in Jira tools and Ducalis to fix Jira backlog priority sorting issues.

Problems with Jira Default Priority Field​

1. Limited Priority Sorting Options​

By default, you can manually drag Jira Issues. However, if you set a particular Jira backlog sorting rule, it locks the sorting option—you won't be able to manually adjust priorities once a filter is applied.

2. Not Enough Priority Field Options​

Jira provides only three default priority levels. When your backlog contains hundreds or thousands of items but only a few dozen critical tasks, three levels are insufficient. Priority is relative, not absolute.

3. Medium Priority is the Default Level​

When you create a new Jira Issue, it automatically receives a medium priority rank. This makes it unclear whether someone has intentionally prioritized it or if it was just set by default.

4. No Prioritization Framework (Biased Decision-Making)​

If you ask your stakeholders and leads what the most important thing is to do, you'll get different answers. Prioritization involves trade-offs across many dimensions—technical, business, competition—making it easy to become biased when setting priorities without a framework.

5. Overdue Priority Scores​

Priority and urgency change constantly in a fast-paced environment. You might receive the most significant customer request today, critical database maintenance data next week, and a critical bug the week after. All tasks will be marked as high priority, creating a backlog full of high-priority Issues with outdated scores.

6. One Prioritization Model for All​

Your Jira backlog contains bugs, new features, improvements, technical debt Issues, and nice-to-have Ideas. Each group of Issues requires its own decision-making process.

7. Unclear Priority Context​

How will your teammates understand why a particular task has the highest priority? Without explaining how the prioritization decision was made, you disengage your teammates and they lose the sense of unity around shared goals, leading to lower morale.

8. No Team Prioritization​

Jira has the priority field turned on for all projects and screens with three states, and every team member can set priority—there's no structured team prioritization process.

This article covers how to fix Jira backlog sorting Issues using Ducalis and built-in Jira tools.

Jira Backlog Order with Ducalis​

Ducalis provides the easiest way to sort Jira Issues. This tool was built to manage tasks around priorities with applicable settings to solve all Jira missing prioritization Issues at once.

Read how to establish a connection between Jira and Ducalis as a real-time 2-way sync.

[Solved] Limited Jira Priority Sorting Options​

By default, all Issues in Ducalis are sorted by priority score. It updates in real-time as your teammates evaluate tasks.

You can turn on Sync Back to export your priority score to a Jira custom field.

Now you can rank your Issues inside Jira using Ducalis's priority rank.

[Solved] Not Enough Priority Field Options​

Ducalis provides flexible options to set your priorities.

For each Criterion, add descriptions, weight, and a scale to help you and your team understand the context.

[Solved] Medium Priority is the Default Level​

No default priority value exists in Ducalis. Mindful evaluation is at the core of the Ducalis approach.

[Solved] No Prioritization Framework​

Combine Criteria into a prioritization framework. Ducalis supports all popular prioritization frameworks: RICE, WSJF, ICE, and more.

Create role-specific prioritization Criteria. To reduce bias in defining priorities, you need different points of view. Invite your sales, design, and support departments to the evaluation process to provide the contexts only they can give.

[Solved] Overdue Priority Scores​

Priorities should be re-evaluated periodically in our fast-changing world. With Ducalis, you can set up Score Expiration after several sprints to ensure all priorities stay up-to-date.

[Solved] Unclear Priority Context​

See hints for a guided evaluation scale with context during the evaluation process.

After evaluation, it's easy to understand how a particular task has been prioritized.

[Solved] One Prioritization Model for All​

You can decide which part of your backlog to prioritize. With Ducalis, you can create multiple prioritization Boards with different parts of your backlog, priority frameworks, and people.

Each Ducalis Board consists of three components:

  • List of Issues. Sync any part of your backlog.
  • Prioritization framework. Prioritize new features with the WSJF framework, marketing activities with REAN, user requests with RICE, and more.
  • Teammates. For each prioritization Board, different people can make their prioritization estimates.

The second Board option is a Report Board for end-to-end prioritization. Combine multiple Boards to switch contexts: zoom in to a particular project or zoom out to a bird's-eye view of your end-to-end prioritized initiatives.

[Solved] No Team Prioritization​

Team prioritization is essential for collecting different points of view and team engagement. The prioritization habit educates your team to always think about the importance of each backlog item.

After you collect scores from teammates, you'll see that their opinions differ, helping you find areas across your team to improve engagement.

Fixing Jira Issues: Sort Order by Priority with Jira's Built-In Tools​

This section covers how to fix all defined prioritization and sorting problems using Jira's built-in tools.

[Fixed] Limited Jira Priority Sorting Options​

As mentioned previously, Jira has only two sorting options: manual or by strict rules. Here's how to sort your backlog by the default priority field.

  1. Create a new filter. Go to Filters > View all filters > Create filter.

  2. Choose all Issues. To include all project Issues, choose only your project name. Set other fields to 'All.' Click Columns and select at least Key, Summary, Type, and Priority to verify sorting.

  3. Sort by Priority. Click the down arrow ↓ of the 'P' column title to sort Issues by priority from highest to lowest.

  4. Save the filter. Verify the 'Save' button is no longer active—this confirms the filter was saved.

  5. Apply filter to the Board. Go to Board Settings for the Board where you'd like to apply the new order based on priority level. Scroll to the 'Filter' section and choose the filter you just created.

  6. Check new backlog order. All your backlog items will now be sorted by the priority field in both the Jira Backlog view and Sprint/Kanban view.

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Each time you try to drag a Jira Issue card, you'll see a notification stating that it's impossible to change the order.

[Fixed] Medium Priority Is the Default Level for New Jira Issues​

Avoid default priority statuses. The prioritization process must always be mindful, and each priority level must be set explicitly.

  1. Open the Jira project's Settings > Issues > Priorities.

  2. Scroll to the 'Add priority level' section.

  3. Create the 'Not Prioritized' level status:

  4. Enter the following values:

    • Name: Not Prioritized
    • Icon URL: /images/icons/priorities/trivial.svg
    • Priority Color: #C8F2FF

    Verify it was successfully created:

  5. Move 'Not Prioritized' status to the first place and set it as Default.

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Every newly created Jira Issue will be placed above all prioritized Issues, reminding you to evaluate new problems before planning your next sprint.

If you update the priority for a particular Issue in your backlog, it will appear at the same place in the list until you refresh the page.

[Fixed] Not Enough 'Priority' Field Options​

Three priority levels are not enough for evaluating a few dozen backlog items. The good news is that you can create as many priority levels as you need.

  1. Go to the Priorities settings. Click the gear icon > Issues > Priorities.

  2. Create as many new priority levels as your team needs. Here are the recommended settings:

    Urgent

    • Name: Urgent
    • Icon URL: /images/icons/priorities/critical.svg
    • Priority Color: #FF0000

    Minor

    • Name: Minor
    • Icon URL: /images/icons/priorities/minor.svg
    • Priority Color: #3F5785

    Major

    • Name: Major
    • Icon URL: /images/icons/priorities/major.svg
    • Priority Color: #853D3D

  3. Sort each level in the proper order to affect your Backlog and Sprint views.

  4. You'll now see many more options for evaluating your new backlog items.

[Fixed] No Prioritization Framework​

For unbiased decision-making, apply one of the prioritization frameworks like WSJF, RICE, ICE, Urgency / Importance, and others. Check our library of popular prioritization frameworks.

Read our step-by-step guide on setting up WSJF prioritization at Jira with Cost of Delay calculations, WSJF scoring using Jira custom fields and Jira Automation.

[Not Fixed] Overdue Priority Scores​

When you have a team with a dozen-plus members where everybody can edit the priority field at any time, Jira's custom field is insufficient for setting dynamic priority values. Priorities may quickly become outdated.

[Not Fixed] Unclear Priority Context​

As mentioned multiple times in this article, Jira can only create custom fields to store numbers. However, priority context is much more complicated than just a number.

[Not Fixed] No Team Prioritization​

If you'd like to collect priority opinions from different stakeholders, most Jira users try using spreadsheet exports, but this is time-consuming and unreliable. Try Ducalis for structured team prioritization.

Last updated: Yesterday