Why Issues Are Not Visible on a Kanban Board in Jira Cloud (Company-Managed)

In Jira Cloud company-managed projects, a Kanban board does not automatically display all issues. Issues appear on the board only when they meet specific configuration criteria. If issues are missing, it is usually due to one of the reasons below.

The most common cause is the board filter (JQL). A Kanban board only shows issues that match its filter. If the filter excludes the project, issue type, status, or contains additional conditions (such as assignee or status constraints), those issues will not appear. Always verify the board’s filter first.

The second critical factor is status-to-column mapping. Issues are visible on the board only if their current workflow status is mapped to a board column. If a status is not mapped to any column, issues in that status will be invisible on the board.

Another frequent reason is the Kanban backlog setting. When the backlog is enabled, newly created issues may remain in the backlog instead of appearing on the board. These issues must be manually moved from the backlog to the board or the backlog feature should be disabled if not required.

Quick filters and swimlanes can also hide issues. If a quick filter is active or swimlanes are misconfigured, issues may not appear even though they match the board filter. Clearing quick filters and setting swimlanes to “None” helps confirm this.

Permissions are another consideration. If a user does not have the Browse Projects permission, issues will not be visible on the board, even if everything else is configured correctly.

In summary, when issues are not visible on a Kanban board, start by checking the board filter, then verify status-column mapping, backlog settings, quick filters/swimlanes, and permissions. In most cases, the issue is resolved by correcting the board filter or mapping the missing status to a column.