How can we show issue count rolling over Sprint to Sprint?

[Bud Herz]

Some issues unfortunately rollover from one Sprint to the next. 

Is there a way in JQL to feed a metric showing how many carry over? Not entirely sure yet how to do this, but metrics like these would help our 'New to Agile' team see where they're having challenges.

A metric like:
1) Issue count in current Sprint also found in previous Sprint
2) Number of Sprints that issues have been in   

We have a custom 'Sprint' field so there should be data historically to calculate, right? 

[Bill Sheboy · Accepted solution]

Hi @Bud Herz 

You could do this with the sprint report, and/or some JQL to get the various numbers, and/or show those as saved filters on a dashboard, and/or use an automation rule triggered on sprint completed to send a report.

Some example queries would be:

• Issues in the current sprint and prior sprints: 

project = myProject
 AND sprint IN openSprints()
 AND sprint IN closedSprints()
 ORDER BY Key ASC

• Issues only in this sprint and no others:

project = myProject
 AND sprint IN openSprints()
 AND sprint NOT IN closedSprints()
 ORDER BY Key ASC

What does your custom sprint field represent?

Best regards,

Bill

[Bud Herz]

Bill you're answering another one of my questions?! Good to hear from you again. 
I will try those out and see. Thanks, much appreciated. 

The custom field is always the Sprint name. We use it to sometimes identify one-off Sprints (for patch work, etc) and to standardize it, the normal Sprint name if a regular one. 

[Bud Herz]

Those worked perfectly! Thank you.

[tinneke_huizinga]

interesting and this helps me to understand how many stories we dragged along from previous sprints into the active sprints, but I would like to have an additional idea how to calculate how often this happens over a period of time. Any ideas on this? 

[Bill Sheboy]

Hi @tinneke_huizinga -- Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

There are probably marketplace addons to report things like that...

Or, you could use custom fields and automation rules, capturing when an issue gets carried over to a new sprint.  Then use a JQL filter on the custom field to report counts/frequency. 

If you specifically need the counts over time, consider doing the above and then exporting the results for analysis in a spreadsheet.  As this is often a short-term/correctable symptom (i.e. carry-over) you may not want to build anything too elaborate, or purchase an addon app.

Kind regards,
Bill

[Terence.Law]

@Bill Sheboy  is there a way to call out only those stories that have rolled over more than x sprints?  

ie. only show those stories that have rolled over 2 sprints

[Bill Sheboy]

Hi @Terence.Law 

Yes, but not with out-of-the-box JQL...and the solution approach you consider may depend on how often you need to perform this check:

One time: Export your issues to a spreadsheet and use a formula to count the number of entries for the sprint field...which will expand to multiple columns during export.

Many times: Consider either a marketplace addon or use a custom field and an automation rule to count an issue's sprints when the field changes.  You do not note if you are using Jira Cloud or Server/Data Center, so... automation is included for free with Cloud and is available as either a free (Lite) or paid (Pro) addon for Server/Data Center.

Kind regards,
Bill

[Bud Herz]

@Terence.Law  - I noticed you wanted to know which stories rolled over more than X number of times. 

We've created a field that increments each time a ticket in QA Review. We can then track which tickets came through QA more than once.

You could do the same and use the incrementing Sprint field to track any threshold you're looking for.