Why is my Backlog and Active Sprint missing issues listed in All Work?

[Nickolas Banducci]

The "All Work" board on my project shows 205 issues that are not attributed to a "Done" status. However, my Backlog shows that there are 149 issues without any filters applied, implying that there are 56 issues that are not being shown. I have identified several of the missing issues, including the two listed in the inserted pictures: "Chapter 7" and "Create bug-tracking/reporting service desk".

I have not been able to identify why these issues are not showing up either in my active sprints or the backlog, regardless of whether or not they are assigned to a sprint. This does not apply to all issues that I've made, as issues such as the "Chapter 6" initiative and tasks within epics linked to that initiative do appear in the backlog. It should be noted, however, that these epics do not appear in the backlog (even when not using a search term), but do seem to appear in the Active Sprints board.

I'm very confused as to why there's such a mess with things appearing and not appearing in these specific boards.

[Trudy Claspill]

Hello @Nickolas Banducci 

Welcome to the Atlassian community.

Are all the issues contained in the same project?

What is the Type of the project(s) this concerns?

For a Company Managed project or a board based on a Saved Filter, the filter used by the board can be manipulated to include/exclude issues. That is one possible explanation. For a Team Managed project the native board within the project does not allow manipulation of the filter.

Additionally, issues will show up in the Backlog and on the Board only if the Status to which they are assigned is mapped to a Column of the board. Check your board settings for the mapping of Statuses to Columns and confirm that there are no Statuses listed in the Unmapped Statuses area. If they are drag them to the appropriate column of the board.

Some issue types may not display as cards on the board or in the backlog depending on the project type. Subtasks don't display as cards on the board or in the backlog for Team Managed projects, for instance.

Lastly, in a Scrum board the Backlog list in the Backlog screen will show only issues that are in Statuses mapped to any column excluding the right-most column of your board. The issues in Statuses mapped to the right-most column of your board are considered "complete" from a Scrum perspective and will therefore not display in the Backlog list. They will display in the Active Sprints in the Backlog screen. It doesn't matter if the Statuses are green/Done; it only matters to which board column they are mapped. What statuses are the missing issues set to, and to which column are those statuses mapped?

When we have answers to the questions I asked above then I'll be able to offer more advice about possible root causes and debugging.

[Nickolas Banducci]

Hi Trudy, thank you for your reply! This is a company-managed JSW project. I had looked up this matter before posting to Community and saw that there were issues in the Unmapped Statuses area that weren't assigned to a column before. That brought about 10-15 issues to the Active Sprints board, but there remain 56 unaccounted for.

As to your question concerning the statuses of the missing issues, these are primarily listed as "To Do", though I set one to "In Progress" to see if that would change anything. Unfortunately, these are all still missing from the backlog and none of them are set to a status in the "Done" column.

[Nickolas Banducci]

Additionally, I should point out that in the Columns section of my Board Settings, there are 171 issues that are currently listed in columns that aren't attributed to the "Done" column. However, there are only 36 issues listed in the "Done" column, when I know that there are 1000+ issues that should be in there, so I don't know what's going on there really.

[Trudy Claspill]

Thank you for that additional information.

What is the filter used by your board?

Can you provide a screen image that show the status/columns mapping screen?