Why does DashBoard column management alter the backlog display?

[Marc Tardif]

Our "Active Sprints" dashboard tab has 3 columns:

1. TO DO with states OPEN, BACKLOG, and REOPENED.
2. IN PROGRESS with states BLOCKED and IN PROGRESS.
3. DONE with states RESOLVED and CLOSED.

We decided to replace the DONE column with RESOLVED and CLOSED columns, each with its matching state.  However, doing so caused the "Backlog" listing in our "Backlog" dashboard tab to include stories/bugs/etc that are in the RESOLVED state, which were not appearing there prior to the change.

Why are column management settings impacting the backlog listing, and how can we have the new columns without this happening to the backlog listing.

[Trudy Claspill · Accepted solution]

Hello @Marc Tardif 

What type of project does this concern? Get that information from the View All Projects page under the Projects menu. Find your project in the list and tell us what it says in the "Type" column.

You refer to a "dashboard". A Dashboard is a specific type of entity in Jira. There is a separate menu for Dashboards. I think you might be referring to your project display that shows tabs across the top labeled Summary, Backlog, Active Sprints, etc. To make sure we are talking about the same thing, can you provide screen images of what you are viewing?

In an Agile board, only the work items in the column farthest to the right are considered completed. If you originally had both the Resolved and Closed statuses mapped to that column, then work items in both of those statuses would've been considered complete and would no longer display in the Backlog work items section of your Backlog screen.

If you have now changed your status/columns mapping so that Resolved in not in the right-most column, then all the work items in the Resolved status are now considered "incomplete" by Jira, and they will be displayed in your Backlog work items section on your Backlog screen.

[Marc Tardif]

My apologies for my incorrect terminology.  It isn't easy to know how to refer to a particular screen or display in JIRA.  I rather wish they came with a watermark in the bottom right corner.

I believe you are correct about it being a project display.  It is a "Board" listed in the "Boards" drop down menu.  Your description of the behavior of an "Agile Board" is precisely what I'm referring to.  I rather expected the backlog to only show those items not assigned to a sprint, otherwise one would expect them to be grouped in the sprint's display list rather than the backlog display list.  It is most unfortunate, and quite inflexible, for it to be based on which statuses are assigned to the right-most column.  It would seem it is simply not possible to arrange the columns as we would like without this undesirable behavior occurring.

Thank you for your time and the information.  It has been most helpful. 

[Trudy Claspill]

The sprints section of the Backlog screen will show only Active and Planned (not started) sprints. If the Resolved work items have been in only sprints that were completed in the past, then prior to the change you made they would've been considered complete. They would no longer have been shown in the Backlog screen anymore.

When you made the change the Resolved items immediately became considered "incomplete". Since they were only previously in sprints now closed, and closed sprints are not displayed on the Backlog screen, the only place for the items to display in in the Backlog list.

[Marc Tardif]

Yes, you are correct again.  Thank you for following through with that update.  I've found we can do bulk transition updates, so cleaning up the backlog should be easy, and we can make the agile board display how we want it without the backlog display issue.  In fact, having resolved stories showing in the backlog will be useful in enforcing that we mark all stories closed.