Status Categories & Resolutions - Getting It Right for My Sprint Reports

Question

Hi!  A few things about my setup.

* Using a company-managed project.  
* Using Scrum
* I have a workflow that includes a "Ready for Release" column (UAT passed, but item is not yet deployed) and a "Done" column (item is in Production).  
* "Ready for Release" had been in a Status Category of "In Progress" (blue) and "Done" is a Status Category of "Done" (green).

Here's what I am trying to do.

* We don't release right at the end of every sprint necessarily.  The timing varies.  
* We want the team to get credit for when the work was done in a certain sprint.  The definition of done for them is "Ready for Release".  
* We want accurate sprint reporting when it comes to burndown.  
* We'd love for the items "Ready for Release" from a previous sprint to still be visible so we don't lose sight of them.  Those tickets being visible in the "Backlog" and "Active Sprint" views are ok.

I've tried the following.

* Updating "Ready for Release" status to a Status Category of "Done".  
* Updating the "Post Functions" in the Workflow to say "The Resolution of the issue will be Done".

Neither of these have worked.  Is there something I am missing OR another way to achieve my desired result?  Thank you!

Danut M _StonikByte_ · Answer

Hi @Jodi Jones,

As mentioned by @Bill Sheboy, you will need the "Ready for Release" mapped on the last column of your Scrum board. This will make the reports work in the way you want.

If you don't like the idea of modifying the agile board, another possibility would be to search on Atlassian Marketplace for an add-on that provides this type of reporting based on custom done statuses.

If you consider the idea of using an add-on, our Great Gadgets app offers a complete set of gadgets for Scrum, which includes Sprint Burndown Burnup Chart, Release Burndown Burnup Chart and Team Velocity, which can be configured to use custom done statuses, which allows you to set "Ready for Release" as a done status.

This is how the gadget look like:

This gadget offers a Data tab with a detailed sprint report, so it is a good replacement of Jira's report. Read more about these gadgets in these articles:

* 8 gadgets for a powerful Scrum dashboard in Jira 
* How to track scaled-agile (SAFe) projects in Jira with Great Gadgets app

Danut.

Bill Sheboy · Answer

Hi @Jodi Jones

For Jira Scrum boards, an issue must be in the right-most board column to be considered completed for the sprint, and thus to impact the burndown and other reports.  The status category has no impact on completeness for sprints.

As you describe your issues being in at least "Ready for Release" as part of the definition of done, you could map that status to the right-most board column, along with "Done".  That will solve your reporting need, but...once completed the issues will no longer be visible on the scrum board for the next / future sprints.

As the team decouples "build" and "release", the question is how does the team manage releasing?

You could use a separate Kanban board to make the release candidates visible, using that to move issues to "Done".  Or, use the release management pages to trigger "release", and use an automation rule to transition the released issues to "Done" finally. Or, release things completed within the sprint boundary, letting the remainder carry over.  Or...switch completely to using a Kanban board and transition away from Scrum.

I recommend discussing with the team the management of releases, what needs to be visible (and when), to decide how to proceed.

Kind regards,
Bill

Jodi Jones · Answer

I should also point out one more thing.  I tested what I tried and the sprint reports/burndown are still just a straight line across.  Also, I do not have constraints on my workflows.  Any status can go to any status.  What I was finding with that is when I moved an item to Ready for Release (and the resolution moved to Done), if I opened it again for any reason, the resolution was still "Done" and I could not change it.