How to remove Backlog column on board with Agile Simplified Workflow

[Ian Vaughan]

When using "Agile Simplified Workflow", it allows be to customise what columns are shown on the Sprint Board :

Screen Shot 2015-05-09 at 06.52.25.pngHere I want to hide Backlog, as there are hundreds of tickets; no one is interested in them when working on the Sprint, this is not a Kanban board.

That works fine, no column is shown, but now no Backlog items are shown in the JIRA Backlog tab!Screen Shot 2015-05-09 at 06.53.15.png

Looking at the Configure page, it states why :

Screen Shot 2015-05-09 at 06.52.52.png

This doesn't seem correct, the Column configuration should not effect other parts of the system.

To solve this for my team, I've switched to using "JIRA Workflow", which does the job.

But it seems at odds that I'm not using "JIRA Agile", and the fact that it hints that I should :

> Simplify the workflow for project its to make it managed by JIRA Agile. This will allow Project Administrators to add and remove statuses below.Learn more about Agile Simplified Workflow

[Boris Berenberg]

Backlog should remain in the To Do column. Adding the issues to the sprint is what controls it showing up on the board or not.

[Ian Vaughan]

Those items are Sprint Backlog, I didn't add any to the sprint, they are just "Backlog". I'm talking about Product Backlog, the 100+ tickets that are never ending!

[Boris Berenberg]

The concept of a Backlog in JIRA Agile is any issue which is in a status which is used on your board that has not been added to a sprint or is not yet resolved. All 100+ or whatever issues should show up in your Backlog tab. From there, you can add them to sprints and work on them in the Active sprints tab. Is your goal to have a set of issues which you don't see in your Backlog tab?

[Ian Vaughan]

"issues should show up in your Backlog tab" thats the problem, with the mapping as I have shown above (first picture) which is configured how I want to NOT show backlog items on the sprint backlog; it then hides all items in the `backlog` state from the Backlog tab (picture 2), of which it states it has done (picture 3)

[Boris Berenberg]

And it will continue to because of how it is designed. I think the simplest thing to do here would just be to map the Backlog status into the To Do column. What is placed in the sprint will control what shows up on the Agile Board. Once you start a new sprint, you can bulk transition all of the issues in the sprint from Backlog to Selected for Development in one swoop. Or transition your Backlog entirely into the Selected for Development status, and delete the Backlog status from your workflow. This will accomplish the same thing and simplify your workflow further.