Kanban backlog and swimlanes

[Karen Thomas]

We're using a Kanban board to manage our issues. I enabled the "Kanban Backlog" on the board so that those issues that are not picked up would show in another view and can easily be prioritized, groomed and then added to the Kanban board. However, once I enabled this the handy "expedited" swimlane showing those issues whose priority is "blocked" disappeared.  Now those issues are no longer on the board. Can the two co-exist or will I have to create another board and or filter/view just for blocked issues?  Ideally everything should be visible in one place so I hope this is just a newbie user problem...

[Jack Brickey · Accepted solution]

when you enable the backlog it moves all issues in the left-most column (status) to the Backlog board regardless of swimlanes. Think of it as the columns take precedence over the rows. What you should do is to create a quick filter for all issues w/ "highest" priority (assume that is what defines your expedited). Then use it to move those issues onto your kanban board.

hope that makes sense.

[Karen Thomas]

Thanks for your quick response. It doesn't make sense to me since the expedited row that *was* there were "issues" that had the priority of "blocked".  Are you suggesting that I not use the "backlog" and instead use a filter with "highest" priority for the team to see what to pull next?  If that's the case, then I would want something like ranking over priority. If that makes sense...

[Jack Brickey]

No not suggesting that. 

So that I am clear here, you had issues in Blocked status. Was this status mapped to the left-most column prior to enabling backlog or some other column? It would help to know you column confit before and after. Regardless, the way it should work is that any issue appearing in the left most column w/o backlog will move off of the Kanban and into the backlog. Typically the left most column is To Do but that may be different in your case. 

Finally, expedited should still exist even with backlog enabled. Go to the board configuration and look for the definition under swimlanes. 

[Karen Thomas]

Ah, yes that was  it. We had more blocked issues that were not in backlog state that were unblocked and apparently moved back to backlog state. (which is a process issue, not a jira issue)

Thanks again for your help!