Summary

As Program Increments (PIs) in Jira Align (JA) are often based on dates around quarter end/quarter start (based on months) and sprint dates are often based on the end of one week and the start of the next week, there are situations where the sprint timings could cross between 2 different PIs.

In a Jira integrated Jira Align instance, where Jira Sprints create the Jira Align sprints automatically, this can cause sprints to be associated to the wrong PI and for the connector to return sprints to the wrong PI shortly after an attempt is made to correct the situation 

This article discusses recommendations and how to correct a spanned sprint that has been linked to the wrong PI.

Environment

Jira Align

Solution

Recommended Practices:

• Try to avoid creating sprints where the start and end dates of the sprint means that it spans across the end and start of two different PIs. This may not always be possible and would require regular communication between whoever configures the PIs in JA and any team member that creates the sprints in Jira. 
• If you must have sprints that span between PIs, make a decision on whether you want such a sprint to be associated to the first PI or the second PI  (where the first PI is the one that is ending and the second PI is the one that is starting)
  • The most typical choice is to use the second (starting) PI, as reporting would then be linked to sprints completed during a PI, but there may be business reasons why reporting based on sprints that started during a PI may be needed. 
  • All future PIs should use the same choice (so it is an ongoing decision and not something that should be regularly changing.)
  • To reduce the possibility of user error and associated admin overheads, it is advisable that all JA Programs/Jira Projects will use the same choice
• Once the decision of which PI will handle the spanned sprints has been made, anyone responsible for creating PIs needs to make sure that when creating a new PI, then sprint anchors that span are only created in those new PIs that match the choice
• Never make sprint anchors covering the same dates in both PIs

Fixing a configuration where the Jira integrated sprints are being linked to the wrong PI 

If sprints, that were created originally in Jira, have resulted in Jira Align Sprints being linked to the wrong PI (due to spanning between 2 PIs and incorrect sprint anchors being configured) then the following steps will fix the issue:

In the steps , the 1st PI refers to the incorrect PI that the sprints are currently linked to, the 2nd PI refers to the correct PI that the sprints should be linked to afterwards 

1. Identify all of the sprints that are in the 1st PI (if multiple teams / boards there may be more than one)
   • Go to Items > Sprints 
   • Use Columns Shown to make sure that the column for Sync Date is visible
   • Use Apply Filters  to set a filter for the 1st PI and remove any other filters (to show all sprints for any teams in the 1st PI)
   • Click on the the Sync Date column heading to sort the list by Sync Date
   • This should group all of the sprints for each Sync Date together
   • Record the details (screenshot) all of the sprints that relate to the Sync Date (Anchor Sprint) linked to the issue  
2. Open the details of the 1st PI (from Items > Program Increments)
3. Click on the Sync Sprints Tab
4. Scroll down to the Current Anchors section
5. Record the details (screenshot) the entry for the Anchor Sprint that needs to move to the 2nd PI  (if moving from the ending PI to the starting PI this should be the last sprint anchor shown, if moving from the starting PI to the ending PI then it will be the first sprint anchor shown)
6. Use the X at the left end of the row to remove the entry for just that anchor
7. Click Save & Close
8. Open the details of the 2nd PI (from Items > Program Increments)
9. Click on the Sync Sprints Tab
10. Near the top of the Screen click the Single Add button
11. Use the information from step 5 to create an entry for the sprint anchor in the 2nd PI - clicking Create Sprint when you have entered the the details
12. Click Save & Close.
13. Using the list of affected sprints (as per Step 1) and repeating for each sprint that used the same sprint anchor
    • Open the details of the sprint
    • Change the Program Increment of the Sprint from 1st PI to 2nd PI
    • Change/check  the Sync Date of the Sprint to make sure it is using the correct one (the previous steps can result in an adjacent sync date being temporarily set which will need correcting)
    • Click Save & Close
14. The above actions should ensure that
    • The Jira Connector does not reset the sprints back to their original PI
    • The Sprint mappings in Jira Management > Jira Sprints > Select Board , shows that the Jira sprints are still mapped to the correct JA sprints but now under the correct PI.

As long as the sprints in Jira were using the correct dates and (before the change) were not subject to any errors in the Jira Management page of Jira Align then no action needs to be taken in Jira. 

Follow up action:

• As the original parent feature of the stories are probably linked to the original PI, and a feature can only be linked to a single PI, you may need to additionally move the stories linked to any of the affected sprints to new features (possibly by splitting the old features). Failing to  correct the parent features can result in reports showing misleading information caused by the sprints of the stories being mismatched to the PIs of the parent features. You can't just move the parent feature to the new PI as there may be other child stories linked to sprints that did not span and these sprints were therefore not moved between the PIs. Note: this issue with misalignment affecting reports can be caused by moving either features or sprints between PIs.