Why are 'to do' tasks showing in JXL Sheets and Timeline, but not on the Board?

[Natalie Keane]

The board view in Jira doesn't show some 'to do' tasks, which are showing as 'to do' in the Timeline and in JXL Sheets. I need to Board to show all tasks regardless of their status. Please would someone mind advising on this? I'd be grateful for any help you can give. 

TIA 

[Jeroen Poismans]

Hi Natalie,

Can you give some more detail about your Board because there can be a number of reasons why these issues are not showing.

Things you could already check:

• Does the board filter include these work items?
• Are there subfilters that might exclude these work items?
• Are there quick filters active that might hide these items?
• Are the statuses mapped correctly to board columns?
• ...

[Thorsten Letschert [Decadis AG]]

Hey @Natalie Keane

Could you provide some additional details about the board in question, e.g.

• business vs. software project
• team-managed vs. company-managed
• etc.

Those bits and pieces might help narrow down your request. If all work items in a specific status are not shown, I'd suspect an unmapped status regarding the columns. If only some work items in a specific status are not shown, I'd suspect a (board/quick/sub) filter.

Regards,
Thorsten

[Natalie Keane]

Hi @Thorsten Letschert [Decadis AG] 

Thank you so much for your reply. The particular project is a team-managed/ software project. 

[Thorsten Letschert [Decadis AG]]

In that case, I'd go for Filters or the column configuration accessible via Configure board.

And (though it might be too obvious) ensure that the additional items showing up in JXL actually belong to the project. While the board can only show items from the project, a JXL sheet can show additional items using JQL or a filter.

[Natalie Keane]

Thank you I have done this and when clicking on 'configure board' the 'to do' items show up, yet they still don't show on the main board. I attach a screenshot of where they show under 'configure board'. 

[Thorsten Letschert [Decadis AG]]

Since your screenshot is showing icons for Epics and Subtasks, can you verify that actual Tasks are missing on the board, or are we talking about work items of type Epic or Subtask (hierarchical higher or lower items)? The latter are not shown on a team-managed board:

From left to right:

• Board view - two work items - only so-called Standard work types (in my example, Task and Feature)
• List view - showing all five work items in To Do status - including Epics and Subtasks
• Board settings - also showing the (in this case, admittedly misleading) five work items

[Natalie Keane]

Thank you so much for your response. The tasks are as shown on the attached. 

Does this mean I need to change the type of task? 

[Thorsten Letschert [Decadis AG]]

I'll go for "it depends". ☺️

TL;DR version: the question of whether to use Epics or not in your case should not depend on whether you want these to be shown as cards.

I'd come from another angle:

I assume you've chosen the Epic type for a reason, e.g., to organize a larger piece of work (a set of tasks)? These Epics are usually used for grouping, and the actual work (pieces) are tracked one level below - in tasks, stories, etc. That's why the Epic itself isn't shown as cards in the board view. If you actually need this hierarchical structure, you could at least make the Epics visible by using the Grouping option:

This won't show Epics as draggable cards, but more like swimlanes, also showing their status.

However, if you don't need a hierarchy and, as of now, your Epics are more straightforward single, independent work packages, you might want to consider adjusting the work type.