Why is this open sprint not in chronological order in the backlog?

Question

I don't understand why this open sprint (Sprint 51) is out of order in the backlog view. The rest of the open sprints are arranged by chronological order as I would expect. However, Sprint 51 in July is showing "before" Sprint 47 which was in May. This is the only open sprint that is out of order. Can't figure out why. I've checked the dates multiple times. See images

Here are the sprint start and end dates for references:

PS, I know... I know, to many sprints open. we are making some adjustments to limit work in progress and move toward consistent sprint closure going forward.

Bill Sheboy · Answer

Hi, Phil.

Sorry for the delay in responding as I was out-of-office.

I just tried this for active sprints in a Company-managed project and it maintained the order from sprint start, regardless of the dates associated to the sprints.

I suggest working with your site admin to ping the support team for this if you are seeing unexpected ordering.

Phil Merrell · Answer

Hi Bill, thanks for the response. Your first paragraph is correct for planning sprints but not for active sprints, from what I understand active sprints are ordered by the defined sprint dates. I could be wrong.

Bill Sheboy · Answer

Hi @Phil Merrell -- Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

My understanding is Sprints are listed in the order they are created, with the newest at the bottom, and closed to the backlog.  You may change the order using the Move Up or Move Down items from the ... menu at the right side of the backlog view for each sprint.

The date fields for a sprint are not required, and even if they were required, the features supporting parallel, non-aligned sprints would lead to confusion if Jira automagically ordered them.  For an example: which comes first out of two listed sprints with different dates: the one which starts first or the one which completes first?  Different teams might decide either one of these orderings is the "correct" order.

Kind regards,
Bill