Help! Is this a bug? Or expected behavior for a scrum backlog?

[Monica Brazelton]

One of my company-managed Jira projects is set up as a Scrum project, and it has a Backlog and an Active Sprints board.

One of their active sprints is open but has not been completed yet, so it’s still active even though it’s past its ‘due date’.

In the Backlog, this sprint shows many issues that are in “Done” status. The team only uses one status (“Done”) to indicate completion in their workflow, and that status is mapped to the far-right column on the scrum board.

The filter query for the board is pretty simple: Issuetype = “ABC issue type” and (category is not EMPTY or Project = 12345)

Based on my understanding of how Backlogs are supposed to work, what I’ve read on other forum posts, and Atlassian’s documentation about the Scrum backlog - it seems like these Done issues should NOT be appearing in the Backlog.

Is this a bug? Or is this expected behavior, possibly because the sprint is past its ‘due date’, or some other reason I’m not thinking of?

I’ve never run into this issue before, so would very much appreciate any help or insight!

Done issues with Resolution set in active sprint backlog:

Board settings showing Done status mapped to far-right column:

[Trudy Claspill · Accepted solution]

Hello @Monica Brazelton 

You said issues are showing up in the "backlog". The Backlog screen groups the issues into lists; one list for each Active or Future sprint with the issues assigned to that sprint, and at the bottom the issues that are not assigned to any Active or Future sprint a list labeled "backlog".

The completed issues (issue in the statuses mapped to the right-most column of the board) will continue to show in the Backlog screen in the lists for Active Sprints - sprints that have been Started and have not yet been Completed. It doesn't matter if the End Date for the sprint has passed; if the Complete button has not been used to close the Sprint then it is still an Active sprint.

The completed issues in your project will not be displayed in the "backlog" list section in the Backlog screen, and will not be shown in Sprints that have not yet been Started.

[Monica Brazelton]

Thanks @Trudy Claspill, this makes sense. Done issues will always show up in the Backlog view of an active sprint. I appreciate your answer and am accepting it! 

[Mikael Sandberg]

Hi @Monica Brazelton,

Welcome to Atlassian Community!

When an issue is moved to Done status, are you also setting the Resolution field, either as a post function in the workflow or via a transition screen? The resolution is what Jira is using the determine the issue's lifecycle status. If the resolution is not set that would explain why done issues are showing up in the backlog. 

[Monica Brazelton]

Thanks @Mikael Sandberg! 

And great question, I should have included that in my summary - yes, all of these issues that are in 'Done' status but appearing in the Backlog also have their Resolution field set to 'Done'.

[Monica Brazelton]

I've added a couple screenshots to my post to illustrate what I'm seeing.

[Mikael Sandberg]

Could it be that the done issues were moved to that status outside of a sprint? Look and see if the sprint field on those are empty, or if they are in a future sprint check the history to see if they moved to done before the sprint was added to the issue.

I would also consider redoing the filter that you have on the board because it is very broad. It is basically saying give me all “ABC issue type” from any projects that have the category set or all “ABC issue type” in project 12345.

[Monica Brazelton]

Hmm, I don't think that's it either - I've found a few Done tickets that appear in the Backlog, have the Sprint field populated with the Sprint of the backlog they're appearing in, and were created and moved to Done within the sprint dates. 

The filter query is purposely broad and meant to capture all of a certain issue type that gets created across dozens of projects, and this is what the team wants to see in order to plan and track their work. 

I know we haven't figured it out yet but I truly appreciate your suggestions @Mikael Sandberg!