See work that sits out of request order
The business keeps its requests in an order on a request board. The team keeps its backlog in an order of its own. A board of backlog items can compare the two: point it at the request board, and every item that sits below where its request says it belongs is marked. Each reader can also sort the board by the requests' order, to see the backlog the way the business ranked it.
Nothing here writes. The marks and the sort read the backlog and the requests, and the backlog's own order stays exactly as it was. To make the backlog follow the requests, use Take priorities, which reorders it after a preview: see Put the backlog in the order of its requests.
Before you start
You need a request board: a board whose cards are requests, of a type that sits on no backlog, ordered by its order field. A board for what the business asked for builds one. Each request is Related to the backlog work that delivers it, on the backlog item itself or on an item above it, such as its feature or its epic.
The request board must be shared, under a team's group or the project board list, so that everyone who opens the backlog board can read it.
Steps
- Open the board of backlog items, for example a board of user stories, and open Settings.
- On the General tab, under Card order, choose the request board in Request board, and press Save.
- Read the cards. An item that sits below where its request says it belongs carries Out of request order in its state row.
- To see the board in the requests' order, open the … overflow and choose By request rank. Choose it again to go back to the backlog order.
What you should see
The mark sits beside the age, and its tip names the request and the request board: Its place in the backlog disagrees with the order of its request, #51 Claims intake, on Requests. When the request is linked to an item above, the tip names that item too: Its place in the backlog disagrees with the order of its request, #51 Claims intake, on Requests, through Epic 200. The List view marks the same items, beside their titles.
The board marks the fewest items that would have to move to put the backlog in request order. When two items disagree, the lower one is marked, because that is the work sitting below where its request says it belongs. Items on the same request are in order whatever their order between themselves. Two requests with the same rank are told apart by their id, as the request board lists them, so the item under the lower id comes first. An item with no request is never marked.
An item whose request has no place on the request board yet belongs after every item whose request has one. Such items form one group at the end of the request order, in their backlog order between themselves, and one of them is marked only when it sits above an item whose request is ranked. Its tip says so: Its request, #53 Fleet quote, has no place on Requests yet, so it belongs after the items whose requests have one. When that request is linked to an item above, the tip names that item too: Its request, #53 Fleet quote, through Epic 100, has no place on Requests yet, so it belongs after the items whose requests have one.
While By request rank is on, each column, and the whole List, shows the items by the rank of their request, the backlog order inside one request, and the items without a request last. A line above the board says Ordered by request board Requests. Cards keep their backlog rank, and dragging is off while this order is shown. A card can still move to another column. Moving a card up or down in its column, and Move to top, bottom and position, are off until the backlog order is back. The choice is yours alone and is kept for this board.
Notes
Which request counts. An item's request is a work item of the request board's type that is Related to the item, or to the nearest item above it that has one: the item itself first, then its parent, then the parent's parent. Of several requests on the same item, the one ranked highest counts. A request in another project is ranked by its own project's order field. If the request type carries no order field in that project, the items under that request cannot be judged, and the board says how many.
A request in a finished or removed state no longer counts. An item whose own requests are all finished takes the request of the nearest item above it that has one still open, exactly as an item with no request of its own does. A request that is open but has no place on the request board yet still counts: it puts its item in the group after every ranked request.
Which items are compared. The items of this board's query, in every column whose state is not finished or removed, that carry an order of their own. The filter changes what you see, not what is compared.
The marks and Take priorities. A mark judges an item by its own request or by the nearest one above it, so it shows, on this board's level, every item that would have to move for the whole hierarchy to follow the requests. Take priorities, with the choice its preview starts with, moves only marked items that have a request of their own, and not always all of them: a marked item can already be in order among the items that have a request of their own. With The whole hierarchy chosen it also moves the marked items that take their request from an item above, so that they follow it. Either way its preview says how many of the marked cards move in this run, and for each of the others why it stays where it is.
What the board reads. Nothing until it names a request board. Then, with every load, a few reads that do not grow with the number of cards: the request board's settings and its query's text, one read per level of items above the cards (two for stories under features under epics, however many stories there are), and one read of the requests. The request board's query is not run.
While the board is open, a request reordered on its own board, and a link added or removed on an item or on an item above it, show within one refresh. That holds whichever end the link was written from, such as a request linked to an item from the request's own form, or an item added under a new parent from the parent's form. Replacing an item's request with another in a single change shows within one refresh too. The board also reads the items above the cards again every five minutes, which brings in the rare change no refresh can see there: a link to an item that is neither a request nor above the cards, or to one you cannot open, swapped for another link in a single change. On an item on the board itself, such a swap shows when the item next changes or the board is opened again.
When nothing shows. An As of snapshot shows no marks. Nor does a board whose cards do not follow the backlog order, because its query sorts by another field or its items carry no order field. Nor does one whose request board orders its cards by its query rather than by rank, has items with no order field, cannot be found, or is itself a board of backlog items. In each of those cases the Request board setting says which. If the board cannot follow every link from some cards, because an item above them or something they link to cannot be read, those cards are not marked, and the board says how many it could not judge. If the requests cannot be read again while the board is open, the marks stay as they were, and the line above the board says they may be out of date.
What travels. Exporting the board keeps the request board it names. Importing it keeps that choice when the request board comes in the same file as a shared board, or is already shared here, and drops it otherwise.