Story linked to issue not appearing in backlog, despite following every step of answered question

[N_ S_]

Hi everyone and @Trudy Claspill 

My question is a follow-up question to the answer of this solved question :

What are the other factors that can affect the visibility of issues on boards?

I did not filter our stories as all issues and issue types from the project are visible in the filter. There is nothing unmapped in the columns, no constraints set, no active quick filter.

Can the screens or fields settings for the issue type prevent a certain issue type (story in this case) to be shown in the backlog and/or timeline?

I have limited admin right, thus I cannot check or edit those parts myself, but I saw that there were "default screens" and "default fields" in the project settings and I could talk to the project admin who manages these parts. I'd really appreciate it, if you could tell me what needs to be de-/activated there, so I can tell him what should be changed.

We use Jira Cloud Enterprise.

Solved: Story linked to issue not appearing in backlog

[Trudy Claspill]

Generally speaking fields and screen settings don't affect the presence or absence of an issue type in an agile board.

What statuses are mapped to the column farthest to the right on the board view?

Are the missing issues all in the statuses mapped to that column?

The right most column represents work that is "done". If an issue is in one of the statuses mapped to that column, and it is not in an active sprint, then it won't display on the Backlog screen. Based on the status being mapped to that column, the work on such issues is considered complete. There is no reason to show it in the Backlog screen because "done" issues don't need to be added to sprints 

[N_ S_]

The stories and epics are in status Open and are part of to those 31 issues. But they are not displayed for some reason. Only Epics and Tasks that are in status Open can be seen. We can edit the stories themselves. They also appear in the plan I've created for this project. They (stories) just aren't visible in this project, nor in the other project.

[Trudy Claspill]

Thank you for that additional information.

You have another post where you talk about having changed the issue hierarchy.

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-questions/Timeline-in-software-project-not-displaying-issues-from-newly/qaq-p/2899527

Does that hierarchy apply here?

If you renamed the original Epic issue type to Story, issues of that type don't show in the board or list of issues on the Backlog. The original Epic issue type shows only in a separate panel to the left of the issues list on the Backlog screen. When that issue type is named Epic pressing the "E" key on your keyboard should reveal the panel. I don't know if that keyboard shortcut is affected by renaming the issue type.

The board and backlog lists will show Level 0 issues. If you extend the issue type hierarchy to Level 2 and higher the board and list will also show issues from those higher levels.

 The agile boards and backlog really only recognize three categories of issues: the original Epic issue (Level 1), standard issues (Level 0), and subtasks (Level -1). The original Level 0 issue type is shown only in the Epics panel. Level -1 issues types can be seen in both the board and backlog nested under their parents. New issues types that you create otherwise are initially created as "standard" issues, and then you move them to another level. But the board and backlog were not designed to cope with customizable levels, so it simply shows all "standard" issues the same regardless of their hierarchy level.

[N_ S_]

Yes, both project use the same scheme after I migrated the team-managed one to the company-managed.

When the project used to be team-managed, the stories were visible in the backlog. Now they aren't visible anymore.

Maybe I have to add that we used to have this problem with the other company-managed project before we changed the hierarchy levels and renamed the issue types. We could see our epics (lvl 1) in the backlog as tickets and in the epic panel, but our stories (lvl 0) as tickets were missing.

After we added the hierarchy lvl 2 and changed names, the following happened:

We can still see our epics (lvl 2 now) as tickets, but the epic panel has become the story panel. Still, our stories (lvl 1 now) that are now displayed in the "story panel" are not visible as tickets in the backlog! We don't have any stories anymore at lvl 0, but I'd bet they still aren't visible. What is going on here?

[Trudy Claspill]

Hello @N_ S_ 

Thank you for that additional information.

For clarity I'll state this, but I'm sure that you are already aware of it. Changing hierarchy level information and renaming issue types at the global level affects all Company Managed projects.

After we added the hierarchy lvl 2 and changed names, the following happened:

We can still see our epics (lvl 2 now) as tickets, but the epic panel has become the story panel. Still, our stories (lvl 1 now) that are now displayed in the "story panel" are not visible as tickets in the backlog!

This is expected. The "Epic" panel is tied to the original Level 1 issue type that starts out named "Epic". If you rename that issue type, the panel remains tied to that one specific issue type, regardless of its name, and the panel name changes to match the new name of the issue type.

We can't really diagnose the previous absence of a particular issue type from boards when the configuration of the issue types and hierarchy are now different. We can only move forward with diagnosing what is occurring with the current configuration.

Based on the status/column mapping that you showed, and your statement:

Only Epics and Tasks that are in status Open can be seen. 

...and your statements about changes to the issue types in the various hierarchy levels, this is functioning correctly. Refer to my previous reply for more on that. If the filter for the board selects all issues in the project, and there are no quick filters applied, and it is a Scrum board, then

• all Level 0 and Level 2 and above issues
• that are not already in the Done status
• should be visible in the Backlog list, in the currently active sprints, or in sprints that are planned but not yet started
• should be visible in the board if they are assigned to a currently active sprint

If that is not what you are experiencing we would need concrete examples and screen images to try to diagnose the problem more, such as:

1. a screen image that shows the issue type hierarchy configuration.
2. screen images for the Backlog screen and the Board.
3. a screen image of an issue that you think should be present but is missing, that includes showing the Sprint field
4. the details of the issue type of that issue, and the Level to which that issue type is assigned
5. details of where you think the issue should be displayed
6. a copy of the filter used by the board

[Tomislav Tobijas _Koios_]

Hi @N_ S_ ,

Is it that you only don't see the issue on the board, or you cannot access the issue at all (e.g., via direct link; example would be https://sitename.atlassian.net/browse/KEY-123)?

As boards can display issues from multiple projects, potentially you don't have view options for specific projects and issues within them.

Additionally, visibility of issues can be restricted by using issue security levels. If you, as a user, are not a part of a group or a project role that is set on a particular security level (and this same security level is set on an issue), that would mean that you cannot view the issue and therefore it won't be visible on the board.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,
Tobi

[N_ S_]

Hi Tobi

We just can't see them in our active sprint and they are also not listed in our backlog.

I can view the issues and edit them, so this shouldn't be an issue security level causing this problem for everyone (including the project admin who can edit workflows, priority and other schemes across all projects).

The funny thing is, we bulk changed the issue type "story" (hierarchy lvl) to another issue type belonging to a higher hierarchy level, yet they can't be displayed. We changed icon and the name as well. Still not visible. I think it has something to do with retaining the -whichever- scheme when we bulk changed them and I'd like to change the scheme that is causing this, as I've read that stories can be displayed in the backlog.

[Trudy Claspill]

I didn't see your reply above before adding my second response. I think my response explains what you are experiencing. Let me know if you have more questions after reading it.

[Tomislav Tobijas _Koios_]

@N_ S_ interesting 👀
I've read all of the replies and I've also tried migrating a couple of stories from team-managed to company-managed project, but they all display as expected in the backlog and on the board/active sprint.

I don't have many ideas left on how you could potentially debug what's going on + I'm also not sure if changing hierarchies as you did is ideal/acceptable to your org, so I would suggest reaching out to the Support team to see what they can say about it.

If you do find the root cause, I believe people here would appreciate if you'd share it. 🙌