COMPLETE SPRINT button missing

[Darline Spring]

Hello Atlassian Team,

I need to close the current sprint 24.9.1, but the COMPLETE SPRINT button is missing. 

• The Jira board owner has admin rights
• But according to our internal Jira Support team, I do not have admin rights to this board

However, the Jira board owner and I as the Scrum Master, have both been able to complete and start sprints for many, many months in the past. 

Q1: What could be the possible reason for the COMPLETE SPRINT button to suddenly disappear?

Q2: What would be the impact if I started sprint 24.9.2 without successfully closing sprint 24.9.1?

Please advise.  Thanks!

[Khang Bui_Candylio]

Hi @Darline Spring

Have you looked out for your "Manage Sprints" permission and "Edit issue" permission? 

[Darline Spring]

Hi Khang,

Thanks for your reply.

Yes, I have Administrators rights to the Jira board. 

Under Project Settings, my role is showing as Administrators

Permissions are showing as:

Administer Projects

Ability to administer a project in Jira.

Extended project administration ENABLED

Grant extended project administration permissions.

Manage Sprints

Ability to manage sprints.

Edit Sprint

Ability to edit sprint name and goal.

Start/Complete Sprints

Ability to start and complete sprints.

Edit Issues

Ability to edit issues.

Thanks, Darline

[Trudy Claspill]

Hello @Darline Spring 

Is the Start Sprint button enabled?

Has the filter for the board changed?

The permissions related to sprints apply at the project level. You must have those permissions in all the Projects that are within the scope of your board filter. What is you board filter currently?

[Darline Spring]

Hi Trudy,

Thanks for your reply. I don't use filters and am not aware of any changes to filters for this board.

I've been managing this board and nearly a year now and I confirmed yesterday that I "do" have permission to this board.

Yes, the START SPRINT button is visible for the sprint that I need to start next (24.9.2). What would be the impact of not properly completing the prior sprint (24.9.1)? I'm fearful that I will mess up this entire board and make it unusable.

[Trudy Claspill]

Are you working with Jira Cloud or Jira self-hosted? If the URL is similar to this then you are working with Jira Cloud:

https://something.atlassian.net

Otherwise you are working with Jira self-hosted.

Permissions settings are different between the two types of Jira, so it would help us to help you if we know which one you are using.

Every board selects issues based on an underlying filter. Are you an administrator for the board? Can you click on the ... button in the upper right above the board and access Board Settings > General? On that page you would find the filter that is used by the board (if you are using Jira self-hosted, or a Company Managed project in Jira Cloud).

(These images are from Jira Cloud.)

You say that the Start Sprint button is enabled but the Complete Sprint is not. Usually one will have permission to both or neither. 

I suspect what may have happened is that an issue from some other project has been erroneously added to sprint 24.9.1, and you don't have the required permissions in the project for that issue.

Use the issue search screen to search for all issues in the sprint. Check if there are any issues that are outside the scope of your board; issues that should not be part of the sprint. Try removing those issues and then see if the Complete Sprint button is enabled.

There are a few things to note about sprints in Jira:

1. Jira does not require sprint names to be unique across the system.

2. Any issue in Jira can be added to any sprint, so an issue not in the scope of your board can still be added to your sprint and you would not know that by viewing the sprint in your board.

Because of these two points it is important, in my opinion, to name your sprints in a way that clearly identifies the board or team to which they belong. This will reduce the likelihood of somebody erroneously adding an issue to your sprint because it has the same name as a sprint in another board.

As to starting the next sprint, it is functionally acceptable to have two sprints active at the same time. However, if 24.9.1 has incomplete issues that need to be in that next sprint, and you start that next sprint and then close out 24.9.1, then issues that are moved to the next sprint will appear as scope change rather than original committed issues for that next sprint. If you manually take the incomplete issues from 24.9.1 and move them to the next sprint before starting the next sprint, then that will appear as scope change for 24.9.1 but the issues will be part of the original commitment for the next sprint.

[Ralf Fehling]

---

Hey Darline,

Would the project permissions possibly be changed?

Sprint permissions and defined processes

Regards Ralf 

[Darline Spring]

Hi Ralf. Thanks for your reply. The original admin just granted me admin rights to the board under the Board>Configure>Administrators option. I will keep digging to see if the permissions have changed in some way. More to come - thanks!  

[Darline Spring]

Yes, do have permission to this board.

[Darline Spring]

Quick Note: The current admin also cannot see the COMPLETE SPRINT button either.

[Darline Spring]

The COMPLETE SPRINT button reappeared and the new sprint has successfully been started.

The issue had to do with rogue sub-tasks assigned to a resource (which have since been deleted) and tasks that have been moved over to another product that are now contained in that product’s active sprint. This issue has now been resolved and all is well.

Thanks again for all of your suggestions 😊 I really appreciate the feedback.

Have wonderful weekend!  Darline

[Krishna Mantha]

Hello @Darline Spring  could you please post some screenshots, i see the same issue at my end. I am given admin rights but unable to close the sprint as the icon is grayed out. 

[Scott Stefick]

This happened to me and it was because the Project Access value was changed.  Initially our Project Access was set to Open, but then it was changed to Limited.  When that change was made, the Complete Sprint Button disappeared.  Once the Project Access was set back to Open, the button reappeared. 

Here is where you check what the value is:

1. Go to your Project

2. Click on Project Settings

3. Click into the Access category (Left hand side)

4. Under the heading Access, you will see Project Access, and one of three values (Private, Limited or Open). For me, Limited removed the button and Open put it back.

[Darline Spring]

02/07/24

Hi All,

This is a late follow-up to the issue I posted a few months ago.

As it turns out, a single User Story has been moved from my project another another project without my knowledge - I guess that's what happens when you have multiple people managing a Jira board.

Anyway, because the User Story had children Technical tasks still open and assigned to my project, I was not about to close my sprint.  In the end, the Technical Tasks were also reassign to the new project like its parent User Story and I was finally about to complete the sprint.

~ Darline