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Some cards appear in several swimlanes (Grouping: Query, Kanban boards)

panda

When I have swimlanes with differenct JQL queries like these two…

swimlane 1, query: text ~ blabla
swimlane 2, query: priority = Emergency

Then a card that matches both queries will now appear in both swimlanes.

Before 2026-10-28 (yesterday), each card appeared only once, in the first swimlane with a matching query.

Does anyone know why this happens, and if I can fix it myself?

Screenshots: example query, board view

Bildschirmfoto 2026-10-29 um 18.55.53.png

Bildschirmfoto 2026-10-29 um 18.53.13.png

Accepted answers

Thanasis Nikolaou

Hi @panda , that isn't how query swimlanes are meant to work. A card that matches several queries should only show in the first matching swimlane, as described in JRACLOUD-91274 https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRACLOUD-91274 where the request to show cards in multiple lanes was closed as Won't Fix. So a change since yesterday looks like a bug or rollout on Atlassian's side, and I'd raise it with Atlassian support so they can check your site.

Until it's fixed, you can make the queries exclude each other so the order doesn't matter. For swimlane 2, try:

priority = Emergency AND NOT (text ~ "blabla")

You can test it in the work item search first. Is this a company-managed board?

James Gamble

Hola panda,

That's an interesting problem, particularly because you can pinpoint October 28 as the day the behavior changed. I agree with @Thanasis Nikolaou that this doesn't appear to be how query-based swimlanes are supposed to work.

I did a little digging and found something that might explain the timing. Atlassian has been rolling out its modernized Jira boards to company-managed spaces, and its October 27 update discusses changes to the board experience, including some limitations involving JQL. You can read Atlassian's announcement here.

That's not confirmation that the rollout caused your problem, but the timing is certainly interesting. It also makes me hesitant to recommend changing your JQL queries before determining whether the underlying board behavior has changed.

Atlassian's existing feature request, JRACLOUD-91274, describes the original behavior exactly as you remember it: an issue matching multiple queries should appear only in the first matching swimlane.

I'm curious about two things. Are you using a company-managed Jira Cloud board, and have you recently noticed any changes to its appearance or functionality?

If you're using the modernized board experience, that would be particularly useful information to include in a support ticket. It could help Atlassian determine whether this is an unintended consequence of the newer board implementation rather than an issue with your configuration.

Thanks,

James

Tomislav Tobijas

Hi @panda ,

This is…by design. There was a recent change that introduced it > see 📣 Rolling out: Modernised Software boards in Jira (Company-Managed spaces)

There's also this feature request about having a toggle or something in that direction 👀: JRACLOUD-99514: Add option to remove duplicate work items from swimlanes in the new Harmonised board 🆕

The only thing you can do is work around it with JQLs 🫤

Cheers,
Tobi

Mertcan Karabaş (WERARE)

Hi @panda ,

Query swimlanes used to put each card only in the first lane it matched, working top to bottom. If cards started showing in several lanes around 28 October, that looks like a recent change or a regression on Atlassian's side. It's worth raising with Atlassian Support. Include the board, an example card and the date you first saw it, so they can say whether it's intended.

Until then, you can make the lanes mutually exclusive so their order no longer matters. Lane 1: A. Lane 2: B AND NOT (A). Lane 3: C AND NOT (A OR B), and so on. Watch out for empty fields: "NOT priority = High" also drops cards with no priority, so write (priority != High OR priority is EMPTY). Cards that match no lane still go to "Everything else".

All comments

Thanasis Nikolaou

Until it's fixed, you can make the queries exclude each other so the order doesn't matter. For swimlane 2, try:

priority = Emergency AND NOT (text ~ "blabla")

You can test it in the work item search first. Is this a company-managed board?

James Gamble

Hola panda,

Atlassian's existing feature request, JRACLOUD-91274, describes the original behavior exactly as you remember it: an issue matching multiple queries should appear only in the first matching swimlane.

I'm curious about two things. Are you using a company-managed Jira Cloud board, and have you recently noticed any changes to its appearance or functionality?

Thanks,

James

Matthew Sinclair

I second the comments.

It sounds like it went from "bug" to "patched"

The JQL should display exactly what it finds in the given swimlane.Exclusions are something you should deal with at the filter/JQL level.

Annoying as it is to have what your used too behavior wise suddenly change - in my eyes it was (past tense) a bug basically. (The day they changed "Major Incident" flag in JSM in JQL - that was fun!)

In any case - test/experiment/fiddle with (Sandbox?) to confirm as suggested.

Tomislav Tobijas

Hi @panda ,

This is…by design. There was a recent change that introduced it > see 📣 Rolling out: Modernised Software boards in Jira (Company-Managed spaces)

There's also this feature request about having a toggle or something in that direction 👀: JRACLOUD-99514: Add option to remove duplicate work items from swimlanes in the new Harmonised board 🆕

The only thing you can do is work around it with JQLs 🫤

Cheers,
Tobi

panda

Hey Thanasis,

thank you for your include&exclude filter suggestion, which unfortunately is no good workaround for our situation - we have many queries on our regular boards (>10 per board), and they change almost daily.

The screenshots came from a "minimal issue example" setup.

I'll follow through on your suggestion to raise the issue with Atlassian support…

I think we have a company-managed board, but not sure how to check. I'm not a general admin, only user with some privileges

panda

Hi James,

thank you for your investigation, and your suggestion to raise the issue. Will do.

Yes, I'm pretty sure it's a company-managed Jira Cloud account, and yes our boards have changed appearance, like
* max 5 quick filters, if I want to display them not just in a drop-down (was better before)
* cards can display much more information, not just 3 topics (me like)
* scrolling for each swimlane, if I want that (no thanks)

panda

Hey Matthew,

thank you, but I don't see how your comment seconds the ones before. IMO you're assuming the opposite: a bug was fixed, not created.

Also I feel the board used inclusion filters before, and now you have to use a mix of inclusion + exclusion to get the same result.

It helped us a great deal for our daily overview to categorize cards in a flexible and quick-adjust manner, with the most relevant cards on top of the board, and none of them "duplicated".

What is (Sandbox?) ?

Mertcan Karabaş (WERARE)

panda

Hi Tomislav,

thank you for the links - only I don't see my issue mentioned on the first one. Which change in particular do you think introduced the multi-show?

The second link at least confirms to me that we're not alone in this finding.

Mihai_LeanZero

Hi @panda,

The rollout post doesn't list it anywhere. What ties it to the new board is JRACLOUD-99514, raised in September against that board with your exact repro, so my read is the new board doesn't have the first-match rule at all, rather than one named change switching it off.

The 5 pinned filters you noticed tell you you're on the new experience. The post says quick filters were renamed custom filters, with up to 5 pinned on the board.

For company-managed you don't need admin rights. Query swimlanes are a company-managed board feature, and to see it yourself select ••• next to the space name in the sidebar, the space type shows at the bottom of that menu.
https://support.atlassian.com/jira-software-cloud/docs/what-are-team-managed-and-company-managed-spaces/

Tomislav Tobijas

@panda It's not explicitly stated, but I believe it's generally related to the whole harmonizing boards initiative.

@Peter Oh can probably give you some additional insights around that. 👀 (Would appreciate it if you can share some details here, Peter; cheers!)

Matthew Sinclair

that's what I meant - bug was fixed.

Sandbox is a feature of Atlassian instances where you can do tests without disrupting production - benefit is it will have a copy of your production data - and marketplace apps (albeit may not be configured the same) - so you can run experiments without much concern or worry of breaking something.

If you have premium or higher - you get at least 1 (Enterprise gets 5)
https://www.atlassian.com/platform/infrastructure/sandboxes