Why do Items disappear from backlog when they are moved from TO DO to other columns on Groom Board?

[Paulo C.]

I have created a Kanban Board for grooming and linked it to an already existing Project. Its columns and states are Open-To Do, Prime-Prime, Refine-Refine, Actionable-Actionable, Close-Close.
 I then created a fake sprint called " To be Groomed" in which the P.O. can put  the items from his/her backlog that must be groomed for future sprints. Following this, I created filters to determine the items that should appear on this Grooming board. These are SPRINT=to be groomed;  TYPE=epic, story, bug;  STATUS: open, prime, refine, actionable, close. 

What happens now is the following: Tickets that are put on the "To be Groomed" sprint backlog and have the status "To Do" appear on the Grooming board under the column Open. However, as soon as these Items move to any other column they simply disappear from the "To be groomed" backlog. WHYYYYYYYY? I have tried everything from creating new status to the workflow to mapping status to different categories to creating new filters, but nothing has solved it. And now I'm just super confused.  Can someone please help me? I just want to all the items on the Grooming board, independently on their state to remain on the "To be Groomed" backlog. 

Thank you in Advance!

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Accepted solution]

Ok, a lot of this is good, but slightly confusing and maybe not quite complete.

Could you 

• Give us the main filter definition for the Kanban board
• Give us the "closed" sub-filter for the Kanban board.  The default is usually something like "fixVersion in unreleasedVersions() OR fixVersion is EMPTY", which is fine, but if you have changed it, can we get the new one?
• Confirm that " created filters to determine the items that should appear on this Grooming board. " means you created "Quick filters" for the board
• Confirm that the columns in your board are all simple 1:1 mappings with status.
• Confirm which status is in the backlog for the board (assuming it is enabled)

[Paulo C.]

Hi, Nic! Thank you so much for the quick response:

*So, the main filter definition for my Grooming Board is: 

project = CP AND issuetype in (Bug, Epic, Story) AND status in (ACTIONABLE, BLOCKED, CLOSE, Open, PRIME, REFINE, "To Do") AND Sprint in (36, 26) ORDER BY Rank ASC

* I  don't think I have changed the 'closed' sub-filter. Or maybe I did but unintentionally. 

* No, they are not quick filters. This is the general overview of this board's configuration:


As you can see I haven't created quick filters.

*The column and status mapping on this board is 1-1



* I didn't get the last point, sorry. 

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Ok, I think I see it now.  The additonal screenshots really helped, thank you!

When you put things into the "groom sprint", you're tagging them for action in that sprint.  The sprint expects to be started before any issues start moving across the board. 

An unstarted sprint is a sub-set of things in the backlog, not a backlog itself.

So when you start moving the issues across the Kanban board before the sprint starts, they are moving out of the backlog, so they disappear from the sprint.

The thing to do here is stop thinking that the sprint is a backlog - it is not.  You should not be starting on anything that is not groomed.  So, I would do one of two things.

Start having grooming "sprints" and represent that on a separate board that only includes status that are pre-real-sprint, and for the actual sprint, start the "to do" column with the status at the end of the grooming process.  (Actually that might sort of work ok even without doing sprints)

Or simplify the grooming idea and just tell your users "look at the top 30 issues in the backlog and don't groom beyond them".

[Paulo C.]

Thank you very much for your help and suggestions, Nic! 

[Paulo C.]

Me again, @Nic Brough -Adaptavist-: Took some time to think about your answer and am still a bit confused about these options you gave me.

With regards to your first suggestion: I have already started a sprint in this specific project. As you can see in the screenshot (1), This project (like all my other projects) has a Sprint backlog, containing the items selected during sprint planning. The progress of these items throughout our sprint is show in a Scrum board for the project (Screenshot 2). This project also has a "fake sprint" called "To be Groomed" which, as mentioned before, shows the items selected by the P.O. that must  be groomed before they make future sprints. The items that are put on these To be Groomed sub-backlog show in my Kanban Grooming board (Screenshot 3), but only if they are in the "To do Column/State).
 
Screenshot 1)





Screenshot 2)





Screenshot 3)

Now, what I am wondering is: will I achieve my goal of having all my items shown on my " To be Groomed" sub-backlog (independently on the column/status they are put on my Grooming board) by simply starting this fake sprint? And, if I do that, will it affect my actual sprint? Can they live separately without influencing each other?