Child Order for Jira

Drag the child issues of an epic, or of any parent, into the order you want. Everyone sees the same order, and your boards and backlogs stay as they are.

What it does

Jira can sort an epic's child issues by a few fields, but you can't drag them into an order of your own. Child Order adds a panel named "Child Order" to issues that have children. It lists the children with key, summary, status, priority, assignee and due date, and lets you set their order by hand.

• Drag children into any order. The order is shared by everyone who opens the issue.
• See progress: how many children are done, in progress and to do, with a progress bar.
• Sort by Jira rank, status, priority, key, summary, assignee, due date, updated or created.
• Group by status or issue type, hide children that are done, and filter by text.
• Works for epics in company-managed and team-managed projects, and for any issue with subtasks.

Getting started

1. A Jira site administrator installs Child Order for Jira from the Atlassian Marketplace.
2. Open an issue that has children, such as an epic. Jira offers the panel only on issues that have child issues.
3. Add the panel with the Child Order button in the issue's app buttons (shown to people who can edit the issue). Once added to an issue, it stays there for everyone.
4. To show it on every issue with children without adding it by hand, a Jira administrator can open the panel's menu and choose "Show for all work items".

Children appear in Jira's rank order (the board order) until someone sets a manual order. If a child was just added and doesn't appear, use the Refresh button: Jira's search can take a moment to catch up.

Manual order

Choose "Manual order" in the Sort menu, then drag a row to a new position. The order is saved on the parent issue and is the same for every user.

• You need permission to edit the parent issue. Without it, you see the manual order but can't change it.
• New children appear after the ones already ordered, in Jira's rank order.
• You can drag while grouped or filtered; the row lands next to the rows you dropped it between.
• Children you aren't allowed to see keep their place in the shared order when you move others.
• The order is saved as an issue property named quillmark-child-order on the parent issue, in your Jira site.
• If the license becomes inactive, the saved order stays visible but can't be changed until the license is active again.

Why it doesn't change Jira's Rank

Jira has one global Rank that every board and backlog uses. Changing it to reorder one epic's children would also move those issues on every board and backlog that shows them, for every team, without telling anyone. Child Order keeps the two apart: the epic's sequence lives on the epic, and the backlog order stays under the control of whoever ranks the board.

The trade-off: Jira's own child issue list, boards and backlogs don't show the Child Order sequence. If you want a board to follow it, rank the board to match; choose "Jira rank" in the Sort menu to compare the two.

Sorting, grouping and progress

The line at the top shows how many children are done out of all the children you can see, plus how many are to do and in progress. Hiding done children or filtering doesn't change the count.

Use "Group by" to split the table by status (To do, In progress, Done) or by issue type. Sort, direction, grouping and "Hide done" apply only to you and are remembered next time.

Permissions

Who can do what in Jira

• See the panel and the children: anyone who can view the issue. The app reads children as the person viewing, so Jira's visibility rules apply.
• Change the manual order: people with the Edit Issues permission on the parent issue.
• Add the panel to an issue: people who can edit the issue; administrators can show it on all issues.

Atlassian permission scopes the app requests

The app doesn't change Rank, issue fields or parent links, or any other issue data.

Data and privacy

The app runs on Atlassian and sends no data outside Atlassian. It stores two things, both in your Jira site: the order (issue IDs) as a property of the parent issue, and each person's view choices as a property of their own Jira user record. It has no storage of its own, keeps no account IDs, and uses no analytics or cookies. See the privacy page and the security page.

FAQ

Will reordering here change my board or backlog?

No. See why it doesn't change Jira's Rank.

Why can't I drag rows?

Dragging works only when "Manual order" is selected, you can edit the parent issue, and the license is active.

I don't see the Child Order button on an issue.

Jira offers the panel only on issues with at least one child issue, and only to people who can edit the issue.

Does it work with subtasks?

Yes. On a story or task, the panel lists its subtasks. On an epic, it lists the epic's direct children (not their subtasks).

Is there a limit?

The panel loads up to 1,000 children per issue, and the saved order holds up to 1,000 issues.

What happens to the order if I uninstall the app?

The issue property stays on your issues, so the order is still there if you reinstall. An admin can delete it with Jira's issue property API. View choices stay on each person's user record and can be removed with Jira's user property API.

How much does it cost?

Pricing and trials are on the Atlassian Marketplace listing. Atlassian handles billing and refunds.

I found a bug or want a feature.

Email support@quillmarklabs.com. See the support page for response times.