Swimlanes and WIP limit in a Kanban Board

[Vishal_Kalavar]

I have swimlanes on my Kanban board based on queries. I have 1 swimlane for Ops work and another swimlane for core work. The third swimlane is the Jira default “Everything Else” swimlane that has my Themes/Portfolio Epics/capabilities. Unfortunately this is being included in my WIP limit and impacting the In Progress column and turning it Red. How do I either delete the Everything Else swimlane or stop it from being included in my WIP limit?

[Trudy Claspill]

You can't exclude the contents of a swimlane from a WIP limit. The WIP limit applies to the column, period.

You would need to have a board using a filter that includes ONLY the issues that would display in the swimlanes.

Or, maybe, if you add to the subfilter query for the board to exclude the stuff in Everything Else, that might also remove the impact to the WIP evaluation.

[Vishal_Kalavar]

Using the board filter to ONLY include stories/tasks/subtasks impacts the Jira Plan view. It removes themes/portfolio pecs/capabilities from the plan view which is not desired. 

What is the sub filter query and where do you find it? Is it possible to add WIP by swim lane?

[Trudy Claspill]

It is not possible to add WIP limits per swimlane.

The sub-filter is found on in the board settings/configuration on the General tab. I don't know if changing the sub-filter will affect the Jira Plan view. This page has more information about the sub-filter but doesn't mention if it affects the Jira Plan view:

https://confluence.atlassian.com/jirasoftwareserver/configuring-filters-938845268.html

You could create a second board with a different filter to exclude the unwanted issues while keeping the first board for displaying your Plan view.