How do I add the item status drop-down to backlog view?

Todd Dobmeyer

Our customer is changing us from our company-managed Jira to their Jira instance, which I believe is also company-managed. They have made me a project admin and there is a capability in our Jira that I cannot replicate in their Jira. This is adding in the dropdown box to the backlog view to quickly change task status.

Screenshot of the Jira we're migrating away from with the dropdown:

Screenshot of the new Jira we're moving to, without the dropdown. I did find a way to display the current status, but not a modifiable status.

In the new Jira, I've noticed I also cannot change the task Status in the Detailed View like I can in our old Jira. The only way I can change the task status is via the Active Sprint view and move it from one column to the next, or I can click on the item to load it in a new page and then change it there.

There are times it's convenient to change multiple item statuses from the backlog view and I would like to get this capability into our new Jira instance. Is this something I can do, or what do I need to ask the Jira admin to turn on so we can have this in our project and on our boards?

Trudy P Claspill

Hello @Todd Dobmeyer 

Welcome to the Atlassian community.

Reviewing the graphics in the two images I believe that your source instance is Jira Cloud and the instance to which you are being moved is actually Jira Data Center.

Jira Cloud is the Software-as-a-service product where Atlassian hosts the product on their own servers and pushes out the application updates.

Jira Data Center is hosted on servers that are managed by the customer, and updates to the product have to be downloaded and applied by the customer.

Check with the admins of the environment to which you are being moved to confirm if they are using Jira DC or Jira Cloud.

While the products offer mostly similar core functionality (Software projects, Business projects, Scrum and Kanban boards) there are definitely differences between them. The option to change an issue status from the "card" displayed in the backlog is one of those differences. That is available in Jira Cloud but not Jira DC.

If you have only ever used Jira Cloud you are going to find a lot of differences like that. Many enhancements have been and are being made in the Jira Cloud product and are not being ported back to the Jira DC product.