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I am attached to a project using VSTS, with the Scrum process selected. As the Product Owner sorts the backlog, things work fine with respect to the Backlog Priority value under the hood.

As tasks move along the Board, from column to column, I have noticed that the ordering of cards within a column will impact the Backlog Priority. This seems contrary to good sense.

Is there a justification why a developer's move of a card within a column such as "In QA" would result in that item being ranked above the other cards in the backlog?

I think it would be better if the sorting/ranking only worked on the Backlog itself. Once an item is underway in the columns, moving it up and down, as developers tend to do, should not disrupt its position in the backlog.

Pittsburgh DBA
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1 Answers1

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The tasks in "Board" is also ordered by the Backlog Priority. So when you adjust the tasks orders within a column, the backlog priority is changed accordingly. This is a feature by design.

And when you move a task from one column to another column, the backlog priority will also be updated according to the new order. But you can change the settings so that the moved tasks still follow the order in Backlog when changing column by following steps:

  1. Click "Configure settings" button on "Board".
  2. Select "Card reordering".
  3. Change the setting to "Work items follow the backlog order when changing columns.".
  4. Click "Save and Close". enter image description here

Note: This setting only set the behavior when changing column, if you drag the tasks to reorder them within a column, the Backlog Priority will still be updated.

Refer to the description from MSDN for details: Reorder cards

Eddie Chen - MSFT
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