How to change a Scrum board setup so that Open issues only show in the Backlog

Question

Hello!  A colleague set up a Scrum board in Jira Software Cloud.  It has the initial ticket status of Open defined in both the Backlog and in the first column of the Active sprint board.   I wanted it set up so that only Open tickets were in the Backlog and when they got moved to the Active Sprint board, the first column would have To Do status and the ticket would be transitioned to that To Do status.

I am unable to remove Open status from the Active sprint board without also removing it from the Backlog panel.  I don't remember Jira working this way previously.    Can anyone help me figure out how to get this working the way I intended?   Thanks!

John C_es8ws9 · Accepted Answer

Hey.

What you’re describing is one of the fundamental differences between how Kanban and Scrum boards work in JIRA. I believe what you want to achieve is only possible with a Kanban board, which uses the different statuses (set in the Columns section of Board Configuration) to determine whether something lives in the backlog or on the first column of the board.

On Scrum boards, it is the combination of the presence of an assigned sprint and whether that sprint is started which controls where the work appears, and you cannot control what appears in the Sprint vs the backlog with statuses.

Can you use a Kanban board instead?

Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Accepted Answer

Hi Benjamin,

A Scrum board will only show items that have been drawn into the current active sprint - by definition, these are no longer backlog items, because you have said your team is working on them.

You don't need to worry about columns here, just look at the current sprint in the backlog.