Summary

This article covers situations where a sprint may appear on multiple boards. This includes any boards in which sprints weren't created or creating a new sprint to make it appear on another board. Examples include:

• Making a change to a sprint in one board affects a sprint in another board.
• A sprint appears on a board in which it wasn't created.
• A sprint starts appearing on a board after an issue has been moved to it from another board.
• Changing the order of the sprint result in an error message despite having manage & schedule issue permission.
• Attempting to start or close a sprint in one board returns an error message. 
  • Option to start or close a sprint is disabled.

Environment

Jira cloud

Cause

Sprints aren't dependent on a specific board or project. Therefore, it's possible for a sprint to be displayed on more than one board. Even so, the sprint is only a singular entity, and changes made to the sprint on one board will be reflected in the other boards.
Sometimes, the same sprint is used in two boards erroneously. A common cause for this is if the sprint naming convention is the same for all boards, and an incorrect sprint with the same name as the intended sprint was linked to an issue.
Furthermore, if an issue was modified or moved and as a result, is displayed in a new board, the sprints that it was originally assigned to will be shown in that new board too. This may not be the expected behavior, even though the sprint appearing on multiple boards is by design.

This behavior is called shared sprint. In Jira, two or more sprints can have the same name but never the same sprint ID. To check if we are dealing with a shared sprint, we can compare the ID of the sprints across multiple boards to ensure there is only one unique ID number.

Diagnosis

• Verify if the sprints are indeed two different entities by checking on their sprint IDs. 
• Use the Issue Navigator to search for issues in each sprint. If any of the sprints contain issues from multiple boards/projects, it will be displayed in all of them.

Sprint identification

If you want to be 100% sure which sprint you're working with, check the sprint's ID. This is the sprint's unique identifier, and cannot be shared with any other sprint. There are multiple ways to obtain a sprint's ID.
We use the below methods to find the sprint IDs and their relation with the board. There is no direct way to retrieve a sprint ID from the backlog at this time, though it is covered as a feature request in our portal: JSWCLOUD-13265

Issue detail view:
If an issue is assigned to a sprint or multiple sprints, you can get the sprint's ID from the issue detail view (no matter if the sprint is future, active, or completed).
Navigate to the issue and hover your mouse over the sprint's name - you can see the sprint's ID in the shown URL. In the example, the sprint ID is 193.

JQL search:

You can find the SprintID through JQL search. Type sprint name in the search bar, and it will show you SprintID, as highlighted in the screenshot below.

Scrum reports:

You can also see the sprint ID in the URL when you navigate to the Sprint Report. Select Reports in the left menu -> Sprint Report. Here, our example is ID 192.

Originating Board Identification

Once you have the sprint ID, you can use the REST endpoint  GET sprint . That will return a key called  originBoardId, which is the original board ID of the affected sprint.

/rest/agile/1.0/sprint/{sprintId}

You may refer to GET all Sprints on a Board API to see the list of sprints on the boards:

/rest/agile/1.0/board/{boardId}/sprint

Solution 1:

1. If one sprint is used across multiple boards where there should be two or more, create a new sprint in the board that is missing one.
2. Move issues to relevant sprints by editing their  Sprint  field value. Do the same to remove them from sprints that should only be displayed on those issues' boards.

Solution 2:

If you want to work with a shared sprint, you need to have appropriate permissions on all the projects based on the board involved (including the sprint's original board) and their corresponding filter query.
We have a Feature request to improve shared sprint functionality: 

• JSWCLOUD-13265
• JSWCLOUD-23196 
• JSWCLOUD-10805 

Also, ensure that none of the boards where the sprint appears have a complex filter query. For more details, refer to our documentation Using Manage Sprints permission for advanced cases.