How do I hide a task from the board without deleting it?

[Nick Maskell]

I feel like every time I search for a way to "archive" a task I get very confused and must be using the wrong language.

I am using a next gen board and all I want to do is hide, archive or otherwise remove the ticket from the board/backlog without deleting it. Seems like the most basic of basic pieces of functionality.

What am I doing wrong here? Am I missing something? 

I feel like I have put hours into finding an answer to this every few months and always feel like I must be missing something.

[Eoin · Accepted solution]

Hi @Nick Maskell - it's not possible to hide tasks one by one at the moment. It is something we will consider for the future but it's currently not a high priority based on overall feedback.

If you are working in more of a kanban style (i.e. no sprints) you can archive all tasks in a Done column at any time. You can use the "Clear x Done issues" option in the column meatball to achieve this.

I hope this helps! Apologies for any inconvenience caused.

[Nick Maskell]

Hi Eoin,

That makes sense, but I do also not want to have this as "done", as it would be misleading if picked up in the future as the work was not done. 

I guess I am just a bit confused as I do not want to mark something as "done" (which hasn't been done). I just want a way to hide it from my board or "archive". It seems like something every company would have a need for.

I don't want to delete a ticket that someone has put time into creating as it may provide some valuable information to someone picking up a similar issue in the future. I also want to avoid deleting as sometimes there are tasks that I think are no longer required, but a couple of months later turns out they are. 

Am I just doing something wrong here with the management of my board? There are 4 PMs at my company searching in desperation on how to do this, but maybe we are just getting something wrong :D 

[Eoin]

You are definitely not doing something wrong :) If the work isn't done, and you don't want it hanging around in the backlog - how about moving it to another project?

There is a Move option in the issue meatball that you can could use - note this has a few steps involved so it is not currently very efficient.

Alternatively you could add an automation rule to clone/delete https://support.atlassian.com/jira-software-cloud/docs/move-an-issue-with-automation/, triggered for example by adding a label. Note there is a limitation on how many cross project rules (500) you can run each month in standard.

Let me know what you think.

[Rob Soma-Lewis]

Hi @Eoin - just throwing my 2p in here as well; I also think it should be possible to remove issues from the backlog. We have things that get estimated and then de-prioritised, but we don't want to delete them. We also use a board that pulls from multiple projects, so changing project is not a potential solution here.

What is the logic for not allowing this?

[Eoin]

Hi @Rob Soma-Lewis 

Since my previous post, we have built more workflow power into Team-managed projects and there are further alternatives for how you can achieve the result you are looking for.

One potential for you to explore is to create a status called "Deprioritised" (or whatever you find is most descriptive for your team) in the workflow for the relevant issue type under project settings. Then map this new status to the Unassigned statuses area in the Columns and Statuses board settings page.

Let me know if this works for you

Cheers

[Rob Soma-Lewis]

@Eoin Thank you for taking the time to reply, but I don't think my original question was answered here. I was wondering what the hinderance is for what seems like a simple feature - same as your other 'right click' functions in the backlog view. 

The solve you have suggested with workflow does not really work because we do not wish to add another status. That would essentially be duplicating the meaning of the generic status 'Open' which is any ticket which is not currently prioritised. 

Would it be possible to get a more direct answer on the issue? Thank you again.

[Eoin]

Hi @Rob Soma-Lewis 

Primarily this just hasn't been a highly requested feature in Cloud relative to other suggestions and feedback that we receive. It is however something currently on our 6-12 month roadmap to close the feature gaps with Jira Software Server/Data Center.

I hope this helps.

Cheers

[Rob Soma-Lewis]

@Eoin Thanks again for taking the time to reply. Good to hear it's being considered, and of course can understand the prioritisation aspect. Would be great to have an update if this gets picked up!

[Lutfun Rinky]

I am also agreeing with @Nick Maskell as i am struggling with how i can hide/archive a ticket for temporarily and don't want move this to " Done ". On GitHub we can easily do that. It would be really beneficial for management if we get this feature! 

[Kappaluppa]

I'm in agreement and must say these roadblocks are primary reasons why unless I'm FORCED to use Jira, I'd rather use TeamWork. These things are so much easier! This simple task is so frustrating. 

What I want to do is to set up an automation where if it is moved to the done column by any team member, it is assigned to project lead (me), then archived and removed from the board, but not deleted. So simple, yet so complex for Jira. #veryfrustrated

[Aspa Varouhaki]

Hello there! 

I have the same issue. I need some tickets to be hidden after a while, although they are not in column Done. Is there a setting where based on the column, you can select tickets to be hidden after X weeks?  

[Hisham hamdoun]

I have the same problem my suggestion is you can add a separate archive folder under the left side menu that we can move the cart to it that will not be deleted and also it will not show in the backlog it's like a separate folder for parked issues/features that we might use in the future

[Daniel Ebers]

Hi @Nick Maskell

welcome to the Atlassian Community!

It might depend what should further happen with this special piece of "work package". Assuming it is something you consider to do later but you don't want it to clutter your board the backlog is a nice place.

But if you instead know it will be a non-starter on long-term you would in common practise close it with a resolution "won't do" (or any other that suits better for your team). This is something that Jira users are familiar with for years in Classic products - you mentioned next-gen. On next-gen any other resolution than "Done" is still something to come, however it looks that will be done soon:
https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JSWCLOUD-17497
Some more information is also visible from the related Suggestion over here:
https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JSWCLOUD-18435

Regards,
Daniel

[Manuel Bastardo Castellano]

Hi @Nick Maskell you could use the backlog, go to your project and select Features, then activate the Backlog.

Now in the sidebar go to Backlog and then you could move to backlog the issues that you don’t want to appear in the board

hope it helps

[Nick Maskell]

Hi Manuel, I already have a backlog. I use that to manage my teams work. 

I still have a situation where I might not want to lose the history of a ticket, but I no longer need to have it sit in my backlog making it bigger and bigger until it was unmanageable.

Is this just a piece of functionality that does not exist? Are there any alternatives I am missing?