Scrum board column placement overrides workflow status category?

[Jill Vieregge]

There seems to be inconsistency between boards/sprints management of status categories and epics.
Part of our workflow is below. The Definition of Done for our Sprint is Development/Validation is completed, and the issue status is set to DONE and the resolution set to Fixed. Then later that issue is released into production, our pipeline sets the status to “ON PROD”. This transition is something we’d like to monitor.

However, I noticed that it seems the order of columns in my scrum board overrides the status category from the workflow (surprised). Notice that below Done its blue not green. Even though an issue is set to DONE and has resolution set, the Sprint Report considers it Not Completed. The story points will only be calculated as velocity in the sprint when the issue goes into production.

If I don’t show ON PROD in the board at all, the Sprint Report says it’s removed from the sprint, and shows the issue as Done (wrong status). If the Issue goes Done -> On Prod in the same sprint its story points won’t be considered in the sprint’s velocity (even though the work was done during the sprint).

Then, when I close the sprint, it says 2 issues are incomplete and will be moved to the backlog, but only the “Ready for QA” issue shows up.

But it is calculated perfectly in an epic: both ON PROD and DONE seen as green and completed, regardless of the board/columns.

I’m guessing the only alternative is to show both in the board in the same column. Maybe have a swimlane for DONE and one for ON PROD?

[Trudy Claspill · Accepted solution]

Scrum boards will consider issues "completed" when the sprint is completed only if the issues are in a status that is mapped to the right-most column of the board. Any issue not in the right-most column will be considered incomplete and should be moved to the next sprint or the backlog (per your choice when prompted). That information is included in the documentation.

The progress reported for the Epic is based solely on the issue status/resolution values. The Epic doesn't care in what column in the board the issue is displayed. A single issue can appear in multiple boards where the statuses are mapped to various columns so the Epic progress can't be based on how boards are configured.

I have not experimented with have a green/done status not mapped to the right-most column and then looking at the Sprint Report when the sprint is closed, so I can't speak to the Done issue showing up as removed vs. incomplete in that report.

[Jill Vieregge]

So why set a category for a status in a workflow at all if its only ignored?

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

They're not set in the workflow, let alone the boards.

The status category is entirely a property of the status, and is not designed or intended to limit what you can do in a workflow or with your board configuration.

[Jill Vieregge]

A status category is set in the workflow (see image below).

You can have a status here have category = DONE. If its not in the last column, your board won't consider it DONE; so why set it here in the first place?

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Because not everyone uses boards.  And when you do, sometimes you do want a status to be green when it is not in the last column.

And yes, the workflow editor lets you set them, but not in the workflow, it is a property of the status, not the workflow.