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Kanban board with filter query to exclude epic shows blank if swimlanes are based on Epic

Monica Morris

If a kanban board uses a filter query to exclude a certain epic, that kanban board shows up as completely blank if that board is also set to show swimlanes by epic.

If the board has no swimlanes set, or swimlanes based on Queries, Stories, Assignees, or Projects, then the filter query and the kanban board works as expected - meaning, the kanban board does not show the epic excluded in the filter query, while also showing all the other items on the board that either belong to epics not excluded from the filter query, or items that don't belong to epics.

But as soon as you set the kanban board to Epic-based swimlanes, the board suddenly shows no items - just a blank board - regardless of whether all the items on the board belong to the epic excluded in the filter query or not.

I have tested this on two kanban projects and gotten the same results both times.

Example filter query: project = XYZ AND "Epic Link" != XYZ-123 ORDER BY priority DESC

Is this purposeful product design, or a bug?

It seems like a bug to me. I have reviewed Atlassian documentation and I haven't seen anything that indicates a user wouldn't be able to set swimlanes by Epic while also excluding individual epics in that board's filter query.

To summarize: I want to be able to have a kanban board with Epic-based swimlanes while also using the filter query to exclude certain epics from that kanban board, and this currently doesn't seem possible.

Thank you in advance for any advice or solutions, Jira community!

Accepted answers

Pramodh M

Hi @Monica Morris

Please find the JQL query for the Board and please let me know if it suits your requirement

project = "projectKey" and issuekey not in ("epicKey-1", "epicKey-2") ORDER BY created ASC

In place of projectKey enter Project Key, and in place of epicKey-1, epicKey-2, enter Issue key of Epics you want to exclude in board.

Thanks,
Pramodh

Nic Brough -Adaptavist-

I think the problem is that the swimlane function needs information from issues that you have excluded from the board.

Server does much the same, and there's a huge pile of errors in the logs when I try to render a board with an excluded Epic. Cloud is not the same software, but it is based on Server and it would not surprise me to find there's a hangover from the server failure still embedded in Cloud.

Bug? I'd entertain arguments that it's not a bug on semantic terms, but it is definitely dysfunctional, however you classify it (the fact you've asked about it, I can see it, and it makes no sense to either of us makes it dysfunctional, even if you can blame just us not understanding it).

I'm sorry though. The only work-around is to not exclude the epics you want to report on parts of.

All comments

Pramodh M

Hi @Monica Morris

Please find the JQL query for the Board and please let me know if it suits your requirement

project = "projectKey" and issuekey not in ("epicKey-1", "epicKey-2") ORDER BY created ASC

In place of projectKey enter Project Key, and in place of epicKey-1, epicKey-2, enter Issue key of Epics you want to exclude in board.

Thanks,
Pramodh

Nic Brough -Adaptavist-

I think the problem is that the swimlane function needs information from issues that you have excluded from the board.

I'm sorry though. The only work-around is to not exclude the epics you want to report on parts of.

Monica Morris

Hi @Pramodh M thank you for your suggestion!

The query you suggested is very close to meeting my requirements: using your query, the kanban board excludes items from that epic, while still including items that belong to a different epic, and allows the epic-based swimlane view.

However, the query also excludes items that are not associated with an epic. Do you know how I would write the query to still include items that are not associated with an epic?

Thank you again!

Pramodh M

Can you please give me an example of which items is it excluding.

Because, I checked with the query, and it was only excluding the Epic issues and the query resulted in issues even if it was not linked to an Epic.

I've attached the Image for Ref

Query Result.png

Monica Morris

@Pramodh M In looking at this again, I think I was mistaken earlier! The issues with no epic link were being filtered out of the kanban board because they belonged to a different project.

I have tested this again by creating a task that belongs to the project in the filter query, but is not associated with an epic. The query works! My board shows all items in that project, except for items that belong to the epic excluded in the query, while also allowing swimlanes by epic.

Apologies for my silly mistake earlier, long week haha! Thank you again for your help @Pramodh M! I have asked my end user to test this on their board and will reach out again here if we run into any issues.

Monica Morris

Hi @Nic Brough -Adaptavist- , thanks for your reply! It seems that @Pramodh M has figured out a way to achieve this, please see our conversation on here for more detail.

Nic Brough -Adaptavist-

Yes, he's got the right way to represent it right, and explained how much better than I did

Rubina Ali

project = "projectKey" and issuekey not in ("epicKey-1", "epicKey-2") ORDER BY created ASC

This query solved my issue of excluding few epics from the Kanban board. Thanks for sharing.

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