How to transition a newly created issue from backlog to board using automation?

[billy jean]

Hello,

We have a next-gen Kanban board with a backlog. Every time we create a new issue using an automation rule, the issue ends up in the backlog but we would like it to appear in the first column of the board instead. How can this be done? 

Changing the status of an issue in the backlog does not make it transition to one of the columns in the board. In order to move an issue to the board, the Move to Board command (triggered from the right corner of the issue in the backlog) must be used. Is there a way to have access to this command through automation? 

Thanks in advance for any suggestion. 

[Andy Heinzer · Accepted solution]

Hi @billy jean 

I understand that you are using Jira Software Cloud, you have a Next-gen Kanban type project where you want to automatically add these new issues to the current sprint.  Unfortunately, Automation does not yet support the ability for you to be able to do this in that specific type of project.

There is a bug tracking this in AUT-1325.  What you could do for other project types, like Classic Scrum, is to choose the automation action of Edit issue, then pick Sprint field.  That would then let you choose either the active sprint or next planned sprint for supported project types.  But again, unfortunately it appears that the built in automation does not yet support these for those next-gen project types when it comes to selecting the sprint field.  Sorry there is not yet better support for this, I am afraid I do not have a working alternative for this right now.  I would recommend watching that issue for updates on this.

Andy

[billy jean]

Andy,

Thank you very much for your reply. 

We do indeed have a Next-gen Kanban type project. In the Project Settings/Features, the backlog option is on while the Sprints one is off. I assume your answer applies when considering the board as the active sprint. I tried this but it indeed does not work with a Next-gen project. 

When we switch off the Backlog option for the project, the newly created issue appears at the right location (first column of the board). We would have liked a backlog to keep other not-yet-selected-for-work issues but I guess this will be our workaround for the moment. Hopefully we can change that when these bugs are created. 

Billy

[Sam Wilson]

It does not look like there is a way to vote for or watch that particular issue.

We are also using the Next-Gen Kanban board with a Backlog.

This is a pretty frustrating limitation/oversight. It would be great to see it resolved soon, because Automation that generates any kind of new issue is basically useless for us as a result.

[Sam Wilson]

Is there anything that can be done by using and "advanced" update, to specify some smart-value field on the issue that would move it from the backlog to the board?

[Sam Wilson]

I did find that if I add a "Send web request" action to the automation workflow with the target URL of https://[your-instance-name]/rest/greenhopper/1.0/xboard/assignToListAndRank with the following payload body:

{"calculateNewIssuesOrder":false,"issueKeys":["{{issue}}"],"rankBeforeIssueIdOrKey":null,"rankAfterIssueIdOrKey":null,"rankCustomFieldId":10022,"rapidViewId":18,"target":"BOARD"}

with method="POST" and copying my current Cookie header into the Cookie header, running the "Validate" with a known issue key, worked.

Unfortunately, that obviously wouldn't really work because it would rely on my session working, which it eventually would expire. It also means that I, personally, would be all over the project history for these automation tasks. Not the end of the world, but it makes a mess, I'm sure.

What would be nice would be either:

1. An explicit Action type to move an issue from the Board to the Backlog or vice-versa.

2. The ability to make arbitrary API requests to your JIRA instance where the headers will be properly set with a security context/session for the workflow agent.

Either way, there is a way to do this with your existing API.

[Ganesh chandra]

@Sam Wilson i am using rank api (rest/agile/1.0/issue/rank) to appears on top of kanban board, In this api request  mentioned in below :

{ "issues": [ "TIC-330", "10009" ], "rankBeforeIssue": "TIC-327", "rankCustomFieldId": "10973"}

What is rankCustomFieldId in this request....can u please help me out and how to find rankCustomFieldId.

Thanks in advance.

[brian.ross]

Any update on this for NON-SPRINT Next-Gen projects? Why does it take YEARS to get a simple automation that knows what items are in the Backlog in Kanban non-sprint projects? 

Just asking for the ability to set a workflow to automatically move an issue from the backlog onto the board when it goes from "Ready/To-Do" to another Status. 

To re-iterate: NON-SPRINT Next-gen Kanplan projects have no ability to filter or automate based on the issue being in the Backlog.

The result of this is many issues are "In Progress" and can even be "Done" but still in the Backlog. Just does not make sense that this is still a manual process only. 

[Kazimieras Lukauskas]

Same problem here.

We are also waiting for this issue to be resolved.

[rcraig]

Ditto.

[stefan.martin]

Same issue

[Ruth]

Is there any update on this? I still run into the issue that I find it quite irritating to peel all the newly created cards from the backlog into the inbox. We have an inbox on the board where we keep new cards to talk about in the standup and then either we move them onwards to analysis or we move them into the backlog, but the first instance should always be this inbox lane on the board and not the backlog...

[SS]

Same, thoroughly regretting moving our project to next-gen, for this and many, many other missing features.

[Gertjan Fober]

Vote for that feature please, we need to convince them that this is needed unfortunately and that we have no interest in the workaround; https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JSWCLOUD-21481

[Sam Wilson]

Dialing in from 2022 on this issue. Basically any automation when the Board is enabled is pointless, including integrations with third-party tools that create issues, because there is no means to move issues from the Backlog to the Board.

One solution I did find, that works today, is moving to GitHub or GitLab, neither of which suffer from these problems.

[Andy Heinzer]

Hi @Jim Ryan 

Thanks for the feedback here.  Sorry to hear that this has been frustrating. The problem with using automation on team managed kanban boards for this is that there is no issue field that changes when issue to move it to the board (unless Sprints is enabled). This makes it impossible for automation to be able to make this change right now.

I can see from your comments and others on this thread that the use of enabling sprints for this project is not ideal workaround for every personal use case. I did not find any other existing feature requests for this ability so far, so I created a new one for what I believe yourself and others on this thread are looking for over in JSWCLOUD-21481.  I would encourage other users that find this thread and want to see this ability to please vote and watch that ticket for any updates here.  I cannot guarantee this feature will be implemented, but at least having a ticket created makes this a possibility.

Just so you know, using the ellipsis (...) is one way to move issues to the board, but you can also click and drag issues from the backlog to the board section in order to move issues.

Alternative to using a team managed board, have you looked into using a Company Managed kanban board instead?  I ask because in those boards it is possible to set the issues that appear in the backlog to use a specific status.  Which could be a better way to then leverage automation to change the status of the issue to move it from backlog to the board view.

Andy

[Andy Heinzer]

Hi everyone,

Just wanted to follow up on this one.  It appears that AUT-1325 has just been fixed and should be rolling out to Cloud sites now.  I tested this against my own Cloud site and I found that I could now assign issues to next-gen sprints as part of the actions within automation.

Cheers,

Andy

[Jon Woodson]

Is there a ticket to "fix/add" this for Kanban Next Gen projects? I don't see where this is possible in automation.

[Andy Heinzer]

Hi Jon,

I am seeing this as possible in my next-gen Kanban project.  However you do need to make sure that both the Backlog and Sprints features are enabled first.  Without these enabled, the sprint features just are not available within next-gen projects yet.

Once that has been done, then you need to make sure there exists at least one sprint in that project.  After that you can create an automation rule, where the action can edit a field (Sprint).  When you do this you should then be able to see any active or planned sprints in progress as options, like so.

Does that help?  Or are you still not able to see these same options in a Kanban next-gen project?

Andy

[Benjamin]

The goal is to have a combinaison of both Backlog and Kanban without using Sprint

So for example in the TODO column you set a limit of 20 tasks.

When a task is then move to DONE column a new task is picked from the backlogs and added at the bottom of the TODO so the TODO column always have 20 tasks

This way we would be able to have a Scrumban project
https://www.agilealliance.org/what-is-scrumban/

  

[Gertjan Fober]

Is there any update on this? We would like to use it exactly as Benjamin is explaining.

[Andrew Turner]

Would be really great if this is possible as it is quite a limitation having tickets go directly to the bottom of the backlog whilst using Kanban. 

[Jim Ryan]

@Andy Heinzer 

Is there any update here? As you can see, your original answer (to enable Sprint features on the project) was off-topic based on the original post.

We need a way to automate moving issues from backlog to the board for next-gen Kanban projects.

It's been two years.

When will Atlassian fix this?

The "Backlog" feature for next-gen Kanban boards is terrible. The only way to move a card from backlog to the board is to manually go to the backlog and manually click the menu item under the three-dots menu. You literally cannot access this feature from anywhere else:

* You can't move it from backlog using automation

* You can't move it from backlog from the issue view

* You can't even filter backlog cards using JQL (there is no property for backlog)

This is a half-implemented feature and it's been years without any fix. Not only that, but you are actively encouraging users to enable backlog on next-gen Kanban by popping up a message. At the very least, you should stop promoting this feature to users until it actually works. It makes our team much less efficient because we're constantly searching for cards and having to move them manually. JIRA is supposed to make teams more efficient, but the constant bugs and half-implemented features just make us less efficient.