"You don't have permission to complete this Sprint" error in Jira Cloud

Summary

Even if they have appear to have the correct permissions, Jira users may encounter an issue where they cannot complete a Sprint on a specific board. When the "Complete Sprint" button is pressed, the following error appears:

"Sprint can't be completed - You don't have permission to complete this sprint. Ask your admin to grant you 'Manage sprints' permission."

Users will also have problems trying to Start the sprint, and may not be able to add or remove work items from the sprint as well.

Note: You can see this error even when you appear to have the right permissions. A board filter often includes more spaces than the sprint's work items represent, and you must have Manage Sprints and Schedule Issues on every space included in the board, not only the spaces with work items in the sprint.

Solution

Check the user's manage sprint permissions using REST API

Most commonly, a user lacks the Manage sprint permissions on a space that is unexpectedly included in the sprint, based on board filter JQL or other factors.

Admins can use the following endpoint to obtain Original Board ID, the Original Board filter, and projectIdsWithoutManageSprintPermission (the list of project IDs where the affected user lacks Manage Sprints permission). Use the Original Board filter to understand which projects the board can pull in. This endpoint requires you to input:

• The User ID of the affected user (instructions to retrieve a User ID can be found here)

• A Sprint ID (instructions to retrieve a Sprint ID can be found here)

Assign manage sprint permission in the related projects

Once you have the Space ID(s) from the previous output, you can compare them with the list of spaces in your instance via REST API. You can either:

• Get a paginated list of all of your Jira projects

  • OR

• Request projects one at a time using a project ID

Once you know which spaces need to have their permissions adjusted, you can add the Manage Sprint, Schedule Issues, and Edit Work Items permissions to the affected user on those projects:

1. Go to the affected space in Jira.

2. Select Space settings, then select Permissions.

3. Select Actions, then select Edit permissions.

4. Add the affected person, individually, through a group or space role, to the Manage Sprints, Schedule Issues, and Edit Work items permissions.

Repeat these steps for each project ID returned in projectIdsWithoutManageSprintPermission.

Note: If the issue still persists after performing the steps above, please contact Support.

Why manage sprint permissions must be added to additional spaces

Grant Manage Sprints and Schedule Issues on every space the board filter can return, not just the spaces whose work items are currently in the sprint. A single missing space in the board filter's JQL scope is enough to block completing the sprint.