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Filtering out Sub-Tasks, not sure why

Brian C
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January 10, 2023

Hi all, I could use some help with a query.  For a bit of background, we're using a Kanban Board with Backlog enabled, and more than once we've found that "something" has modified old Issues/Stories which caused them to reappear on the board since that counts as activity within the past two weeks.

To get around this, we used a board sub-filter:

issueFunction in issuesInEpics("Resolution = 'Unresolved'")

That way, even if something changed on an old issue (like a new comment, or the rank changing) it wouldn't show up on the board because it belonged to an Epic that's marked as Resolved.  And it worked great!

Except... now we need to use sub-tasks, and that filter filters them out.  The backlog view explicitly says "2 subtasks are being filtered by the board's Saved Filter".

So, we saved the first filter for easier reference, and expanded the board filter:

Filter = "Issues in Unresolved Epics" OR issueFunction in subtasksOf("Filter = 'Issues in Unresolved Epics'")

The thought being that the initial filter will return all issues in unresolved Epics, and the new part would return all sub-tasks of issues returned by the saved filter.

But... it doesn't.  The backlog still shows issues being filtered by the Saved Filter.  What's confusing though is that if I copy and paste the board filter into the advanced search function. I get exactly the data set that I'd expect, including the sub-tasks!

So... why does it behave differently in the board filter, and what do I need to change to get it to work as intended?

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Brian C
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January 10, 2023

Jeez... alright, for anyone else who comes across this and only knows just enough to be dangerous like me, here was the problem:

"Saved Filter" literally means the filter applied in the "Saved Filter" field.  It does not mean the Board Sub-Filter that you saved.  It's an entirely different filter.

And the one that was applied to our board said:

project = XYZ AND issuetype in (Epic, Story) ORDER BY Rank ASC

Notice what isn't there?  Yeah, no sub-tasks.  So even if you include subtasks in the board filter, the "Saved Filter" not including them will override that.  I added that in and now everything is working as expected.

Hopefully this will save someone a few hours of troubleshooting.

Nic Brough -Adaptavist-
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January 10, 2023

A board sub-filter is, for Kanban boards, the definition of when issues should drop out of the done column.  It is not able to add more issues into the board.

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