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Group a Jira board by assignee, priority, or any field

By Jens Schumacher, former Head of Product for Jira

On a Jira board, columns always mean status: To Do, In Progress, Done. If you want to group work a different way — by assignee, by priority, by epic — Jira's answer is swimlanes: horizontal lanes layered on top of the status columns. They work, but they're configured in board settings, often need JQL, and only an admin can change them. Here's how to set up grouping in both space types.

Choose your Jira board type

Company-managed Jira Team-managed Jira

Company-managed board

Company-managed boards offer the richest swimlane options. You can group by a preset like Assignee, Epic, or Space, or define fully custom lanes with JQL. Configuring them requires admin or board-admin access, and the setting applies to everyone using the board.

  1. Open Board settings → Swimlanes

    From your board, select more (•••) → Configure board (or Board settings → Layout → Swimlanes). You must be a Jira admin, space admin, or board admin.

  2. Choose a swimlane base

    Pick a built-in option: Assignees, Stories (parent), Epics, Spaces (handy on multi-space boards), Queries for custom lanes, or No Swimlanes.

  3. If you chose Queries, write a JQL clause per lane

    Each lane is its own query, e.g. priority = Highest for a "Critical" lane, priority = High for the next. Order them top to bottom.

  4. Save

    The swimlanes apply to the board for everyone. Work items that don't match any lane fall into a default catch-all lane.

Group without JQL lanes

Group by the field that matters without configuring shared swimlanes.

Learn how

Team-managed board

Team-managed boards support swimlanes too, but with a shorter list of preset options and the same admin requirement. Expect fewer choices than company-managed.

  1. Open Board settings → Swimlanes

    From your board, select more (•••) → Board settings, then Swimlanes. Board-admin or space-admin access is required.

  2. Choose from the available presets

    Team-managed swimlanes are more limited: typically grouping by assignee, epic/parent, or subtask. Custom JQL lanes are a company-managed strength, not a team-managed one.

  3. Save

    As with company-managed, the swimlane choice applies to the whole board, not just your view.

Go beyond Jira’s preset lanes

Group by the field that matters, not just Jira’s limited choices.

Learn how

Good to know

What to know about grouping Jira boards:

  • Columns always mean status. Native Jira boards can't make columns represent assignee, priority, or any other field: swimlanes are the only grouping lever.
  • Admin-only. Only Jira, space, or board admins can change swimlanes. Regular board users can't re-group on their own.
  • It's shared, not personal. Swimlane settings apply to everyone on the board; whatever an admin sets is what the whole team sees.
  • Custom grouping means JQL. Anything beyond the presets requires a JQL query per lane, and only in company-managed spaces.
  • Team-managed has fewer options. The preset list is shorter, columns remain locked to status, and there's no rich custom-query swimlane support.
  • Catch-all lane. Work items that match no defined lane collect in a default lane, which can get noisy.

Group by anything, in one click

Assignee, priority, epic, sprint, label, or any single-select custom field: BetterBoard groups your board however you need, without JQL or admin rights. Free to try with your Jira.

Try BetterBoard free

FAQ

Can I make Jira board columns show assignee or priority instead of status?
No. Jira board columns are tied to workflow status and can't be changed to represent another field. To group by assignee, priority, or similar, you use swimlanes, which add horizontal grouping on top of the status columns.
How do I group a company-managed board by assignee?
Open Board settings → Swimlanes, choose the Assignees base, and save. You need Jira, space, or board admin permission. Each assignee then gets their own horizontal lane across the status columns.
Can I create custom swimlanes in Jira?
Yes, in company-managed spaces. Choose the Queries swimlane type and write a JQL clause for each lane (for example, one lane per priority level). Team-managed spaces support only a limited set of preset swimlane options.
Why can't I change the swimlanes on my board?
Swimlane configuration is restricted to Jira admins, space admins, and board admins. If you don't have one of those roles, you won't see the option to edit swimlanes: you'd need an admin to change it.
Do swimlanes change the board for everyone?
Yes. Swimlanes are board configuration, so the grouping an admin sets applies to every person who views the board. Native Jira boards don't offer per-user grouping.
How is BetterBoard's grouping different?
BetterBoard treats grouping as a view setting, not fixed board config. Any user can group by status, assignee, priority, sprint, labels, or any single-select custom field in one click and switch it as needed, without JQL or admin permission, and without changing the view for everyone else.