How to filter for User Stories completed in a Sprint?

[Gero Kassen]

Hello everyone,

my question is regarding the filtering for User Stories that are completed in a Sprint. This seems quite trivial at first glance, but the problem arises, when a Story is worked on in multiple Sprints and then finished in only one Sprint.

Example: Work on User Stories starts in Sprint 3, does not get finished in Sprint 3 and 4 and then gets closed in Sprint 5.

Jira tracks this User Story in the Sprint Field with the values "Sprint3,Sprint4,Sprint 5".

When I want to analyse the data, lets say, in a pie chart on a dashboard and I filter for all User Stories completed in all Sprints and then group it in the pie chart for Sprint, the User Story will appear in all three Sprints, even though it was only completed in Sprint 5.

This problem then spills over into many other Use Cases, because no Jira native gadets, nor any other Marketplace solutions (for example the SumUp Plug-In that I am using) is able to differentiate between in which Sprint the User Story was worked on and in which Sprint it was actually finished. Therefore the data becomes useless, because the User Story and its Story Points will appear or gets summed up in multiple Sprints.

Did anyone encounter the same problem or even has a solution for this? 

[Bill Sheboy]

Hi @Gero Kassen 

Three ways I have seen teams address this Jira limitation is by:

• exporting the data and comparing Resolved to the sprint time range,
• purchasing marketplace add-ons with better sprint reporting, or
• using automation rules to flag when an issue finished during a sprint.

With the automation approach you could add a custom field, e.g. CompletedInSprint, which is set when the issue completes during a sprint.

For some teams I have supported, the root cause of this reporting need was carry over work from sprint to sprint.  We worked on that a bit to make carry over more of an exception rather than normal, reducing our need for such reporting.

Best regards,

Bill

[Gero Kassen]

Hey @Bill Sheboy

thank you for the different solution approaches. Do you have suggestions for marketplace add-ons that do a better job with the Sprint Reporting and are able to differentiate between "worked on in this Sprint" and "Finished in this Sprint"?

The Automation Rule is a good idea, I will try this.

We do not have a problem with a lot of work, that gets carried over in a Sprint, but when you have 1-2 User Stories that eventually have this circumstance, the data for an analysis becomes pretty useless very quickly, because e.g. the Story Points of one Story will be accounted for 2 different Sprints instead of one. When you then do a Matrix for lets say Sprint and Epic, this one Story is able to distort the value of one cell in this matrix by 50%, when there are only 10 Story Points that were worked on/finished in this one Sprint for this Epic and the User Story that gets rated for two Sprints has 5 Story Points.

I was also very suprised, that I did not find any threads about this topic in the Atlassian community, because this problem will affect any Scrum team that works with Jira and wants to analyze their work, that they accomplish in a Sprint.

[Bill Sheboy]

Hi @Gero Kassen 

For your specific question, I do not have a recommended marketplace addon for this need.  If you search for "sprint" on the marketplace there are probably several, although they may do this by dashboard charting rather than making the data available for searches. To do that, you could consider a JQL add-on that might allow you to pull-apart the sprint field for analysis.  (It is likely one or more vendors will respond to this thread to give you suggestions.)

I completely understand the carry-over situation you describe.  This is why I often exported Jira data to a spreadsheet to pull apart the sprint field for analysis of completed work versus carry-over.  I recall seeing several community posts on this topic; the trick is finding the right language to find them, so often a browser engine search is better than the one built into the forum.

Now instead I use the automation approach; once the fields are stored (e.g. CompletedInSprint) it is easier to search and report on them.

Once you decide and try out a solution, please consider posting back here so the community can benefit from what you learn.  Thanks!

Best regards

Bill