Checking Past Backlog Rankings in JIRA
I’m facing a tricky situation with our customers. They think our dev team isn’t following the priority order when pulling stories from the backlog into sprints. I need to prove them wrong or figure out what’s going on.
Is there a feature in JIRA that lets me see how stories were ranked in the backlog on a specific date before they got added to a sprint? This would really help clear things up.
I’m currently using JIRA version 5.2.11. Any tips or workarounds would be super helpful. Thanks in advance!
As someone who’s wrestled with this exact issue, I feel your pain. In JIRA 5.2.11, there’s no built-in way to view historical backlog rankings, which can be frustrating when you need to prove your team’s workflow.
Here’s what worked for me: I started taking regular screenshots of our backlog, saving them with date stamps. It’s not ideal, but it creates a visual record you can reference. Another trick is to create a custom field for ‘Last Known Rank’ and update it manually before moving items to sprints. It’s extra work, but it saved my bacon in similar situations.
If you’re open to it, consider proposing an upgrade to a newer JIRA version. The newer versions have much better tracking capabilities that could solve this problem long-term and improve your overall project management.
Unfortunately, JIRA 5.2.11 doesn’t offer a built-in feature to view historical backlog rankings. This is a common issue that many teams face. You might consider checking the issue history to see if rank changes were logged. Another method is to use a third-party add-on that provides historical tracking, or even establish a manual tracking system by creating a custom field to record ranking snapshots. Upgrading to a newer JIRA version could also be beneficial, as recent releases include improved tracking mechanisms.
Implementing a systematic process to document backlog changes may help provide a clear audit trail for prioritization decisions.
sry to hear bout ur problem. jira 5.2.11 is kinda old so it might not have wat ur looking for. hav u tried checking the change history for each story? sometimes it shows rank changes there. or maybe u could use snapshots of the backlog (if u take em) to compare. good luck!