Jira Align Sprint mappings for closed sprints show warning "Multiple Jira sprints are mapped to a single Jira Align team sprint"

Summary

When a Jira Project and Board is integrated to a Jira Align (JA) Program and Team, if there is a mismatch between the Sprint Anchors (Sync Dates) in the JA Program Increment (PI) and the dates of the actual sprints in the Backlog of the Jira Board, then this can result in more than one Jira Sprint being mapped to the same JA Sprint.

When this happens a review of Jira Align > Settings > Jira Management > Jira Sprints > choose Board shows a warning triangle against the affected sprints and hovering over this triangle displays the message:

"Multiple Jira sprints are mapped to a single Jira Align team sprint. Make sure only one Jira Sprint is mapped to each team sprint"

⚠️ This message indicates that there may be reporting issues in JA as stories may be associated to the wrong JA Sprints.

If this condition is then not noticed for some time, resulting in a number of closed sprints (and possibly the current active sprint) being affected, then attempts to use partially automated methods (such as described in Sprint status fails to sync from Jira to Jira Align) may not work, and a fully manual method of correction may be needed.

ℹ️ The problem symptom itself is only seen when using the default Sprint Mapping logic (order based). The problem does not occur when using the newer Sprint Mapping logic (end date based)

Environment

Jira Align

Cause

• Mismatches between Jira Sprint Dates and Jira Align Anchor Dates cause invalid mappings into Jira Align

• Adjustments have been made to either the Jira Sprint Dates or Jira Align Sprints Anchors Dates after the initial mappings have been generated

In both cases, the issue has not been promptly identified / corrected, resulting in problems with Closed sprints going back some time.

Solution

The solution (manual method) can be broken down into 3 key sections (expand below to see the specific details):

A - JA Program Level / PI Changes

Notes:

The settings in the section only need checking / adjusting once for each Program

These settings are also important for any of the semi-automated methods, as all of the methods rely on valid anchor dates being set

1. Within the Program, Identify the earliest Program Increment (PI / Release) that has issues with Sprint Mappings, by checking for the earliest Sprint with black warning triangles in Jira Management > Jira Sprints > choose board to get the earliest sprint date and then use that date to find the earliest PI. (check more than one Team / Board in the Program just in case there are differences)

2. Then go to Items > Program Increments, find the PI identified in step 1, open the details of that PI and click on the Sync Sprints tab

3. Scroll to the bottom and review/correct the sprint anchors so that they have the have the correct dates set. (the dates should match to the sprints in Jira and are usually on a regular cadence).

   ⚠️ The Anchors column is a text field containing the anchor names which usually includes dates. As it is a text field overtyping is needed to adjust the dates in that field

   ⚠️ Try to avoid deleting sprint anchors as there may be work items linked to them (other than Stories) that can be adversely affected by deletions

4. Make sure any changes are saved.

5. Repeat from step 2 for each PI that follows the one identified in Step 1

B - Jira Project and JA Board Settings / Team Level Changes

Notes:

These settings need checking / adjusting for each Board/Team under a Program, where that Program already has had the Anchors checked / corrected (in section A above)

1. In the Backlog for the Jira Board make sure the current and future sprint are in calendar order top to bottom and have end dates that match the Anchor Sprint end dates as configured / checked in step 3 (in section A)

2. In Jira Management > Jira Sprints > choose board, run Resync Future Sprints and wait for this process to finish (so when the same screen, after a refresh, shows the Resync Future Sprints button again).

   ℹ️ This should map the future sprints correctly as long as the sprint anchors (Section A) and the date of the Jira Sprints (step 1) are correct. This will not fix the active or closed sprints

3. Confirm the state of the mappings of the future sprints

4. If the future sprint mappings are fixed, the next steps start at the current Active Sprint and work backwards/upwards, if the future sprints are still affected then the next steps start at the lowest affected future sprint in the list

5. Starting with the Active Sprint (or lowest affected future sprint) and working upwards in the list, as seen in the mappings (Jira Management > Jira Sprints > choose board)

   • Identify the correct sprint name and dates that this mapping should be linked to and confirm if the mapping is currently correct or incorrect (remembering that the left columns are the Jira Sprint details and the right column is the the Jira Align Sprint details for each row

   • Go to Items > Sprints (and filter for your team)

   • If the mapping was correct, Open the sprint details and make sure that the Begin Date, Finish Date and Sync Date (anchor) are correct and adjust if necessary and then repeat step 5 for the previous sprint in he list

   • If the mapping was incorrect, check the list to see if a sprint of the required name exists

   • If the sprint exists, open the details and make sure the Begin Date, Finish Date and Sync Date (anchor) are correct and adjust if necessary

   • If the sprint does not exist, manually create the sprint with the correct Name, PI, Begin Date, Finish Date and Sync Date (anchor)

   • Back in the Sprint mappings (Jira Management > Jira Sprints > choose board) In the row for the sprint, change the JA sprint in the last column to the correct JA Team Sprint

   • Scroll to top of sprint mappings list and click Save

   • repeat step 5: for each previous sprint until all the problem sprint mappings have been fixed

C - Correct the story sprint assignments

Notes:

This is necessary as the many-to-one sprint mappings (that have now been fixed in Section B) will have resulted in a number of stories being in the correct sprint in Jira but the incorrect sprint in Jira Align (JA). As such, an action is needed to force a correction of the sprint assignments in JA.

Although these steps can be done after each individual sprint mapping is corrected, it is better to do this after all the sprint mappings in the board have been corrected.

1. Go to Jira Settings > Jira Integration

2. Make sure the Project is set correctly

3. In the AND box setup a JQL query for IssueType in (Story) AND (created >= '2024/1/1' or updated >= '2024/1/1') - you can adjust the dates as appropriate. The example pulls stories that have been created or updated since the start of 2024. The date chosen should be before the date of the earliest affected sprint)

4. Also set the Boards to Sync to the Team Board and enable the the board, sprint and fix version sync by setting Yes

5. Click Run - when the process has finished a review of which stories are assigned to which sprints in Jira Align should shows that correction have been made. If any of the Jira Align Sprint names are not currently based on the Jira Sprint names then the Jira Align sprint names will also be changed by this action - as long as Sync Sprint Names from Jira is set to Yes

ℹ️ This part is documented in https://confluence.atlassian.com/jakb/how-to-force-the-sync-of-jira-data-einto-jira-align-1346244952.html

Extra information / follow-up

If multiple Teams / Boards and Programs are affected, then repeat the steps as necessary for the other affected areas

To understand which Boards / Teams and are under which Program (and linked to Jira), use the following steps:

• Go to Jira Management > Jira Boards (default tab)

• Click the column heading for Jira Align Program and in the resulting dropdown, pick your Program by adding a checkmark in the box next to it

• Click anywhere in the background of the page page, that is not a link, and the page will refresh based on the selected program

• The resulting list shows all the Jira Boards and Jira Align Teams under that Program

• If the Jira Sprints column also contains a number, then you can click in that number to go directly to the Sprint Mappings for that Board/Team