We are trying sync the Feature order from Aha to VSTS (never the other way around).
Keeping the Features in VSTS in the same order in Aha is in our use case, critical to using the integration.
The reason that it fails is because matching the Aha Rank with VSTS Stack Rank (default Aha mapping) is incompatible not because Aha Ranks by Release (which is an issue) but because VSTS Stack Rank uses "sparsification" that is triggered on any VSTS Board Changes even if the board is constrained to maintain order on VSTS Work Item State change.
While your documentation indicates order sync works in Jira, it does not and could never work in VSTS using this approach.
Could we use the new rank field introduced with the prioritization view for Features and Epics to sync the ranking over to DevOps/VSTS? It seems to me it adds a global rank feature even though it's not the exact stack rank logic that Microsoft figured?
But I agree to what is said here - without being able to sync the global rank and not just by release the integration to DevOps/VSTS is almost useless, creating confusion and out-of-date backlog priorities.
I agree and have reported various versions of the same issue. As it stands Aha is creating MORE work for us, not less, because we have to maintain priority in two separate places.