keep focus on top of kanban board when dragging an issue to another column

Question

We have a kanban board with  8 columns and in peek times there are a lot of (short) tasks on the board for different epics. when work is done on a task, we drag the task to the next column. Since work is done on that task we don't need to keep focus on that task. We would rather leave the focus on the top of the screen to choose the next task to work on.

Is there a possibility to keep focus on top of the screen. Or is there maybe a keyboard shortcut to go back to the top of the screen?

Online I see a few people with the same question, but I can't find a real answer.

Bill Sheboy · Answer

Yes, and...I hypothesize the design idea was "if you are moving an issue on the board, that issue should retain focus based on where it lands by rank within the issues in the column, except when..."

There have been many suggestions / defects logged around this behavior, and many are closed with "won't do".  Here is a sampling, and there are some edge cases in there for curious swim lane filtering scenarios.

As a Jira Software user, I want to disable the auto scroll on the board when an issue's status is changed

Remove scroll down on a board when an issue is moved to the bottom of a column with many issues

Agile Board Configure Columns - Floating Column Header when Scrolling

Scroll position is changing on some actions with issues on a Scrum Board

...

Tomislav Tobijas · Answer

Interesting solution @Rindert Slee. 👀 I can't say that I had this particular scenario/request so my answer is what came on top of my mind.

I'm glad you manage to sort it out!

And yes - as @Bill Sheboy said, I forgot to mention that these shortcuts and dragging cards this way on a board affects issue ranking (if you ever do so, that's the one thing to keep in mind). Thanks for the note Bill! 🙌

And also, if you see it fit, you could also reach out to Atlassian Support as John said and discuss this behavior/feature with them as well as they could maybe find or open new suggestion at JAC for this. 💡

Bill Sheboy · Answer

Hi @Tomislav Tobijas

FYI the original intent of the question seems to be to retain the focus on the top of the page when transitioning an issue, not to re-rank issues in order to do so.  Re-ranking could have unintended consequences for the team and their product owner / champion.

Kind regards,
Bill