How do I stop backlog items from appearing in a kanban board? (team-managed)

[Martin Rose]

We're using a team-managed project and using Kanban. I've enabled the backlog feature. Our workflow looks like this:

• To do / backlog (for new issues that are not prioritised yet - we have LOTS of these)
• Ready (prioritised for development - available for developers to pull and start working on)
• In progress
• Done

We want the backlog to house all the "to do" issues. Showing dozens/hundreds of deprioritised issues on the kanban board would be messy, and actually counterproductive, as they shouldn't be available to developers to pull until they're moved to "ready". But when I remove the "to do" status from the board columns, all those issues disappear from the board (good) but also the backlog becomes empty (this is bad) and I have no view from which to prioritise / groom the backlog.

In the help pages and other questions, I'm reading that only issues visible on the board will show in the backlog view. Surely this can't be right? That sounds like the backlog is just a list view of what's already on your board.

Note: there are many answers online that say I should drag the "to do" status into "the backlog column". There is no backlog column - perhaps because we're on a team-managed project. I'm not sure why none of the help pages mention this, or why it would be designed this way.

Is there a way to achieve what we're looking for? Or is it not possible to have a backlog separate from the Kanban board in team-managed projects? 

[Walter Buggenhout · Accepted solution]

Hi @Martin Rose and welcome to the Community!

As mentioned in this support article, the kanban backlog in team managed projects is a feature of its own, not linked to issue status.

If it's enabled, all issues you create end up there. There's no configuration or settings you can apply to change that behaviour. When you disable the backlog on a kanban board, all issues move to the actual board based on their status.

If you want more control, using company managed projects instead would be the better option, I'm afraid.

Hope this helps!

[Martin Rose]

Thank you!