auto move from backlog to a board column

[Danijel Marjanovic]

hi community

how can i  move automatically a task containing a label from the backlog to a specific board column?

regards

DM

[John McKiernan · Accepted solution]

Hey Danijel,

thanks for your message. 

Mohammed is quite right as above. Any of those apps should do the job for you. 

From the perspective of Automation for Jira - the rule would look like this:

*When Issue Transitioned to 'In Progress'

*Issue Condition: If label contains 'XYZ'

*Transition the issue to 'Status ABC'

Keep in mind, depending on how your board looks, you might need to add more 'Transition actions'.

So for example:

Transition the issue from 'In Progress' to 'Review'

Transition the issue from 'Review' to 'Done' 

and so on. 

Hope that helps!

John

[Danijel Marjanovic]

Hi John

Thank you for your example. It works very well when I create an issue on the board. If I plan an issue in the backlog and assign it to a teammate then I always have to manually move it to the board "move to baord". Can I also move it with Automation for jira as soon as it is assigned to a team member? or is that not possible because the backlog is only for planning purposes?

[John McKiernan]

Hey Danijel,

glad that helps.

Your second use case is definitely possible also. There aren't many restrictions to what you can do. 

What you would need to do is create a rule that looks like this:

*Issue Created Trigger

*If Status equals Backlog

*And assignee is "bob"

*Then transition the issue to XYZ

Hope that helps!

John 

[brian.ross]

@John McKiernan Is there a way to do this with the Kanplan Backlog?

When I try to create an automation there is no way for me to determine Status: Backlog -- it only shows me Statuses from my Board, the Backlog is excluded. Seems like the Kanplan Backlog status is invisible to automation. Would be really helpful to have this functionality. 

[Ronny Rentner]

I have the same issue. There is no way to set the statuses "in backlog" vs "on board".

The existing statuses also don't have any impact on whether an issue appears on the board or stays only in the backlog. An issue can be "in progress" while still being in the backlog.

This is wrong but there is no way to stop it.

[John McKiernan]

Hi @brian.ross

@Ronny Rentner 

Apologies I missed your initial message. Are you using next-gen projects? If so, unfortunately automation and next-gen do not work perfectly together right now. Should be fixed up in the next couple months. 

Let me know if not. 

Cheers

John

[Maria.Broide]

Its definitely a gap at the moment. Ideally I'd like to be able to set in automation rules if the card appears in a Board or in Backlog. That way I could customise with rules that if status of todo is set and Assigned, then automatically move to display on the board. If Done and resolved for over a week, remove from Board. I'm trying to set up a project right now, and this is starting to annoy me enough to go back to a classic project. 

[Andreas Kleiber]

@John McKiernan are there any news on this?

I would also love to automatically move an issue to the board from a kanban backlog when certain things happen.

Thank you

[John McKiernan]

Hey @Andreas Kleiber ,

Unfortunately we don't support this because essentially a board is tied to a sprint, but a kanplan board has the sprints feature disabled. We do have an issue tracking this: https://codebarrel.atlassian.net/browse/AUT-2037

[PavelVais]

Hello @John McKiernan  is there any progress of this issue? I'm still having a problem to automatically move issue from backlog to board (nextgen kanban board)

[Ayal Kellman]

I would also like to know if there is any progress on this issue. 

[Ryan Bricklemyer]

Following to see if there is an answer for Next-gen projects. 

[Matt Drobel]

@John McKiernan1 any update? I want to automatically move a certain issue type from backlog to board (Kanban) on issue creation, e.g. Create Task > move task to Kanban board immediately. Unfortunately, the current default is Backlog.

I have Backlog and Board enabled, but not Sprints. It's been 6+ months since an update. Would appreciate some news. Thank you very much.

[John McKiernan]

Unfortunately no update @Matt Drobel - I have put a comment on the issue for the product team to update this page once it is shipped. Apologies, I know it can be frustrating. 

John

[Matt Drobel]

Thanks @John McKiernan1. Looks like AUT-2037 has been in your backlog since last September. Would be nice if you could prioritise it to ship in line with the Coming Soon feature New Board and Backlog Filters in team-managed projects found at https://www.atlassian.com/roadmap/cloud?status=comingSoon&. Hopefully, we won't have to wait too long.

[A_J_ Apple]

I too would like this automation! Whenever someone moves an Issue to WIP it would be nice if it auto moved to the Board. I also don't use sprints on this particular board, so hopefully that doesn't matter.

[Ben Adcock]

Same here!  We're working with just a Kanban backlog/board for now so I lack this control to be able to move issues to the board using automation.

[Fernando M.]

I'm also awaiting for that. I tried to create a tool in my administration page to automatically assign custom fields, but the issue is always created under Backlog and there is no way to move to the Board via Jira API :(

[Kevin Boyd]

If the issue tickets had an editable selector for Backlog vs Board, it would go a long way to improving on this problem. Lack of visibility from ticket to Backlog/Board setting is the main pain point for me. Any given ticket, if I want to confirm it's on my Board, I have to go filter the Backlog. I should be able to see on the ticket itself which one it's in, and ideally make changes from within the ticket. And, this is a small thing with big impacts. I for one waste a LOT of time on this missing process. 

[Todd Campbell]

I too would find this useful. One use case for me is the ability to move bugs directly to the board upon creation for team visibility. If they are determined to be less than critical we could always move them back to the backlog. 

[Simeon Cheeseman]

For Next-gen kanban boards I did find out I can work around this limitation using the web request action. For both of the following requests you need to add the Authorization header as in this article https://confluence.atlassian.com/jirakb/how-to-extend-automation-for-jira-with-rest-api-calls-1021217952.html

The flow goes as follows: (replace `<instance>` with your instance)

1. Send a GET request to `https://<instance>.atlassian.net/rest/agile/1.0/board?projectKeyOrId={{issue.project.key}}`
2. Add a `Create variable` step
   * Variable Name: `boardId`
   * Smart value: `{{webResponse.body.values.first.id}}` (next-gen or teams projects only have one board so this is OK)
3. Add an `If: Compare two values` condition as follows: (just to make sure nothing weird happens)
   * First Value: `{{boardId}}`
   * Condition: `does not equal`
   * Second value: `Empty` (literally empty field - don't fill anything in)
4. Sent a POST request to `https://<instance>.atlassian.net/rest/agile/1.0/board/{{boardId}}/issue` with;
   * Web request body: `Custom data`
   * Custom data: `{ "issues": ["{{issue.id}}"] }`

Though this works, it'd be much nicer if we could have an "Authenticated Jira Api Web Request" type that automatically adds the Authorization header for the triggering user. This workflow's down side is that whoever generates the Header token will be the user that is recorded on the audit log.

[CharlieB]

@Simeon Cheeseman Is this still working for you? We've tried the first step, but see "Basic authentication with passwords is deprecated. For more information, see: https://developer.atlassian.com/cloud/confluence/deprecation-notice-basic-auth/"

Yours is OK?

[Simeon Cheeseman]

Yea, it's working for me. In the page I linked in my original comment, for this step;

echo -n username:password | base64

`password` here means the API Token that they talk about on the article you linked, not your login password. If you use an API Token it should work.

[Joel Barger]

how on earth can this be marked as an acceptable answer!? 

[Quang Bui Nhat]

Follow up to see when the automation action Move from Backlog to Board is available on next-gen Jira

[Quentin Schneider]

No news ??

[Ahmad Akilan]

Any update in 2023?

[Matthew Bozek]

Will this be fixed in 2023? :( 

[Pasha Lytvynenko]

2023 and we are still on the same place :(

[Ahmad Akilan]

In team project Kanban, we have resorted to disabling Backlog. The TODO status is the backlog. We could even assign a WIP. Long term ideas moved to Product Discovery.

[Matthew Bozek]

We've had to do the same and rely on quick filters for a backlog status, unfortunately (minus using Product Discovery). It is really frustrating trying to rely on the Kanban board for backlog prioritization.

[Ahmad Akilan]

We are trying to operate with backlog, so most of the items in our TODO (pseudo backlog) are just old stuff. Chances are we will never get the time to work on them. Product Discovery allowed us to have a place where Product Management team have a place to play around and plan the future and far future in isolation. The issues are cascaded on the team once we are ready. I would say despite the frustration, we have tried to take it as a way to ditch traditional backlogs.

[Michelle Yip]

Any updates on when this feature will be available for Kanban boards? I've tried few ways to 'hack' around this, but I'm still stuck. Any help or workaround suggestions are much appreciated! 

Otherwise, would there be an option to 'hide' the Create shortcut button at the Active Sprint view, and simply have these two ways to create:
- In Backlog view, under the Board segment, keep the Create button

- In Backlog view, under the Backlog segment, keep the Create Create button

[Mayur Rao]

Any update on this please @John M ?

[Christian Klammer]

Just +1'ing this, I want to move support/bug tickets created via Halp straight onto our Kanban board.

[Dara Garvan]

Same here! Looking to move from Backlog right to the board on creation.

[Jean]

Also +1'ing this! Very well needed feature! (I would have assumed this feature to be possible as default)

[Quentin Schneider]

I have a lot of use cases, very disappointing...

[Tomer Shani]

Can anyone from the Atlassian team update here?

It's been open only for two years, so take your time....

[Joel Barger]

Yeah really... here we are 2023. @Atlassian !?

[Leandro Matías Doldán]

Any update here?

[Ahmad Akilan]

Any update in 2023?

[Sergei]

I'd also like the ability to move Jira issues that are created through Jira Automation to be added to a next-gen Kanban board automatically.

@Danijel Marjanovic @John McKiernan @Charlie Gavey @brian.ross @Ronny Rentner @Maria.Broide @Andreas Kleiber @PavelVais @Ayal Kellman @Ryan Bricklemyer @Matt Drobel @A_J_ Apple @Ben Adcock @Fernando M. @Kevin Boyd @Todd Campbell @Simeon Cheeseman @Charlie @Tomer Shani @Jean @Umi C @Leandro Matías Doldán @Mayur Rao @Christian Klammer @Dara Garvan @Benny Chen @M Amine @Alex Yaroslavsky please upvote and comment on issue JSWCLOUD-21481 to show Atlassian that this is worth focusing resources on ASAP. Thanks :)

[Alex Yaroslavsky]

Really need to ability to auto move an issue to the board when its status changes from TODO to anything else

[Jean]

Also +1'ing this! Very well needed feature! (I would have assumed this feature to be possible by default)

[Matt Drobel]

@John McKiernan it's been 10 months since my comment above. Any update? The issue you're tracking for this is still in the OPEN status. It mentions a related issue (ACF-2233) but I don't have access to view that.

I can only assume this is one of those issues that will be celebrating a 5-year status with no resolution soon. It was raised 2.5 years ago (Oct 2019). While I can appreciate Atlassian rolling out new features and products, equal time must be spent on your ever growing backlog of unresolved issues.

I will stop watching this issue and move on. It's simply too frustrating to see monthly emails from people asking for an update that never comes.

[Umi C]

Any update yet, same issue here :(

[Benny Chen]

I'm also waiting for this to happen. Any update  on this? Thank you.

[M Amine]

You have to use an app. The idea is the following : 

• Listen to the event/transition of the task going to the backlog
• Then trigger an action based on the value of the label. 

Among a lot of plugins able to do what you want, you can find : 

• Automation for jira (using the intuitive, with no code, UI. You can listen to the "Transition event" and then test in JQL that the label fits the value you want and if it is the case trigger the transition to the target status/colum)
• Script Runner for Jira (using a post-fonction or a listener or even both)
• SIL Power Script (using a post-fonction or a listener)
• Jira Suite Utilities (using a post-fonction)

[Pavlomir Marinov]

Seems like a feature in high demand. Can the Atlassian team reconsider adding automation feature to move issues from the Backlog to the Board? 

Thanks.

[Michelle Yip]

Appreciate any replies on this similar thread that covers this topic too! https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-Software-questions/Any-suggestions-for-Workflow-validation-or-Custom-Field-for-a/qaq-p/2354295#U2354296

[Joel Barger]

This problem has been around for 3 years and still no attention on this. wth?

[Joe]

+1 I need this to work too!