Sprints

What a sprint is here

A sprint is a fixed run of one to four whole weeks for one Scrum Team. It starts on a Monday and ends at 23:59:59 on its final Friday, in the team's timezone. The product numbers sprints per project: Sprint 1, Sprint 2, and so on. It never uses a number twice, even after the Product Owner cancels a sprint. The product offers no way to name a sprint. It titles every card by its number, for example Sprint 3.

Sprints live on the planning screen. To read that screen you need View. Without it, the product answers as if the project does not exist. See Sprint planning for the backlog pane, the drag-and-drop and the close dialog.

Create a sprint

NeedsRun sprints sprint_run

The button New sprint sits beside the heading of the right pane. That heading reads Sprints · 2, where the number is the count of cards. The button is absent for people without Run sprints. There is no dialog and no field. One click creates the sprint, and the product chooses every value.

1. Open the project.
2. Click Sprint Planning.
3. Click New sprint.

The new card appears in the Scheduled list, collapsed. It shows the team or No team, 0 items, a Scheduled pill, its dates, and the goal line No Sprint Goal yet — the sprint cannot leave Scheduled without one. Click its header to expand it before you write the goal.

The values the product chooses

The team

If the project has exactly one Scrum Team, the sprint gets that team. If the project has none or several, the card reads No team. The product offers no way to choose or change the team of a sprint. See Scrum Teams.

The start date

Every sprint starts on a Monday, and the product picks which one. It takes the next Monday in the team's timezone, and today counts if today is a Monday. If the team already has a later sprint, in this project or another, the new one starts after that sprint's Friday. A Closed sprint counts too, so an early close does not free its weeks. With no team, the organization's timezone decides the Monday. The screen offers no way to choose a date.

The length

The project setting Sprint length: 1 week to 4 weeks, with 2 weeks as the default. The sprint ends on the Friday of its last week.

The size cap

The project setting Sprint plan soft cap. The product copies it onto the sprint.

The Sprint Goal

Empty. Write it on the card before you mark the plan complete.

The sprint card and the week ruler

NeedsView view

The right pane always shows Scheduled sprints. Tick Plan complete, Active or Ended beside Scheduled, plus: to reveal sprints in those states. With no sprint at all, the pane reads No sprints yet. People with Run sprints also read Create the first one; it starts on the next Monday. When the filters hide every sprint, the pane reads Nothing scheduled. Reveal other states above, or create a sprint.

The card header has two lines. The first line holds the title. The second line is a row with four things, in this order: the team name or No team, the size as x / y, the item count, and a status pill. In x / y, x is the sum of the sizes of the items in the sprint, and y is the cap. An unsized item counts as 0.

The week ruler sits under the header: a thin bar with one segment per week of the sprint. A three-week sprint has three segments. The segments take the accent color while the sprint is Active, so you can read the length and the state without text.

Below the ruler the card shows the dates, for example 2026-09-07 → 2026-09-18. These are the sprint's own dates in the team's timezone. The product does not convert them to your timezone. The goal line comes next: the Sprint Goal, or No Sprint Goal yet — the sprint cannot leave Scheduled without one.

Click the header to expand or collapse the card. An expanded card shows the goal editor, the item rows or Nothing planned yet. Drag items in from the backlog., and the action buttons for its state. Every card starts expanded when the page loads. Click an item row to open the item panel and read or edit that item. Each item row ends with the button To backlog, which sends the item back to the backlog. That button is absent for people without Run sprints, on a Closed or Cancelled sprint, and on a Done item in an Active or Ended sprint.

The size cap

The cap warns and never refuses, so every transition stays available. It is the project setting Sprint plan soft cap as it was when the product created the sprint. The settings grid accepts 1 to 999, and 40 is the default. The setting accepts 999999 at most, and the product refuses a larger value. The cap and the item sizes count in the project setting Size unit: Points or Hours.

When the sum of the item sizes passes the cap, the x / y metric turns amber. The card gets an amber border as well, but not while the sprint is Active. An Active card keeps its accent border in every case. The dates line gains a sentence such as Oversized: 46 against a cap of 40.

The Sprint Goal editor

NeedsRun sprints sprint_run

The editor sits on the expanded card, below the goal line. It is absent for people without Run sprints, and absent on a Closed or Cancelled sprint. It works while the sprint is Scheduled, Plan complete, Active or Ended.

1. Expand the sprint card.
2. If the sprint has no goal, click Set the Sprint Goal. If it has one, click Edit the Sprint Goal.
3. Type the goal in the field Sprint Goal.
4. Click Save goal.

To discard the draft, click Cancel instead. The product saves on the click, not on each keystroke. Save goal stays disabled while the text equals the saved goal. The product trims the text. A goal has at most 2000 characters. If the text is longer, the product refuses the save with Invalid request body.

To clear the goal, empty the field and click Save goal. The hint under the field says so: Why this sprint is valuable. Leave it empty to clear it — a sprint with no goal cannot leave Scheduled.

If somebody else changed the sprint after you loaded the page, the product refuses the save with This record was modified by someone else. and reloads the screen. The card then shows what they wrote. See Editing conflicts.

The six states

• Scheduled — the state a new sprint starts in. Its plan is not yet complete.
• Plan complete — the sprint has a team and a Sprint Goal, and it waits for its Monday.
• Active — the sprint in progress. A team has at most one. The board follows it.
• Ended — the time is over, but nobody closed it. Every item stays in the sprint until somebody closes it.
• Closed — final. Every unfinished item went to the next sprint or to the backlog.
• Cancelled — final. The Product Owner stopped it. Unfinished items went to the backlog.

Move a sprint between states

The action buttons sit at the foot of an expanded card and change with its state. Each button sends the version of the sprint you see. If somebody else changed the sprint first, the product refuses with This record was modified by someone else. and the screen does not reload. Reload the page. Click the button again.

If they moved the sprint to another state first, the product refuses with a state message instead, and the screen does not reload either. Examples:

• Sprint 3 is plan_complete, not scheduled.
• Only an active sprint can end.
• Sprint 3 is already closed.

Scheduled → Plan complete

NeedsRun sprints sprint_run

On an expanded Scheduled card, click Plan complete.

The pill becomes Plan complete, and the card offers Reopen plan and Activate. The default view no longer shows the card. Tick Plan complete in the filter row to see it again. From now on the hourly job starts the sprint on its own once its Monday begins.

Plan complete → Scheduled

NeedsRun sprints sprint_run

On an expanded Plan complete card, click Reopen plan. The sprint returns to Scheduled, and its items stay where they are. The hourly job no longer starts it.

Plan complete → Active

NeedsRun sprints sprint_run

On an expanded Plan complete card, click Activate. The calendar does not limit this: you can activate before or after the start Monday. If the sprint has no team, the product refuses the click with A sprint needs a team before it can start.

The pill becomes Active, the week ruler takes the accent color, and the card offers End sprint. The board now follows this sprint. See The board and the Daily Scrum.

Active → Ended

NeedsRun sprints sprint_run

1. Tick Active in the filter row.
2. Expand the sprint card.
3. Click End sprint.

The sprint ends at that moment, whatever the calendar says. Nothing moves: every item stays in the sprint until the sprint closes. The card offers Close sprint…. The board has no active sprint until the next one starts. Usually you do not need this button, because the hourly job ends the sprint on the Saturday after its final Friday.

Ended → Closed

NeedsRun sprints sprint_run

The card offers Close sprint… only on an Ended sprint. Tick Ended in the filter row to see it. A dialog titled with the sprint's number opens, for example Close Sprint 3. It lists every item that is not Done, with a choice per item: the team's next sprint or Backlog. The project setting Unfinished items go to pre-sets the choice. Done items stay with the sprint.

After you close the sprint, its card leaves the screen for good. Each moved item loses its assignee and gets a new version, so an open item panel gets a conflict on its next save. It also gets a history line, and the activity feed records the counts. An automatic close does the same. Sprint planning describes the dialog and its rules.

Cancel a sprint

Only the project's Product Owner can cancel a sprint. The button Cancel sprint is absent for everybody else, and Run sprints does not unlock it. The project screen names the Product Owner. If the project has no Product Owner, nobody can cancel a sprint until somebody names one. See Projects.

1. If the sprint is Plan complete, Active or Ended, tick its state beside Scheduled, plus:.
2. Expand the sprint card.
3. Click Cancel sprint.

Every item that is not Done returns to the backlog, never to the next sprint, whatever Unfinished items go to says. Done items stay with the Cancelled sprint. Each returned item loses its assignee and gets a new version, exactly as a close does. Its history reads returned the item to the backlog when Sprint 3 was cancelled. The activity feed records the count, and the card leaves the screen.

What the product does on the hour

The instance's operator calls the hourly job, normally once an hour. Nothing inside the product starts it on a timer. If nobody calls it, no sprint ends or starts on its own. The activity feed and the item histories show the hourly job's acts under the name SimpleScrumTools. A change can therefore arrive up to an hour after the boundary it follows.

It ends sprints

From the first second of the Saturday after the final Friday, the hourly job moves every Active sprint to Ended. The recorded end time is that boundary, not the moment the job ran.

It starts sprints

From 00:00:00 on the start Monday in the team's timezone, the hourly job activates every Plan complete sprint that has a team. First it closes the team's other Active or Ended sprints, exactly as Activate does. It leaves a Scheduled sprint alone.

It repairs the backlog

It recomputes the Blocked flag of every item and writes a history line on each item it corrects: is no longer blocked or became blocked because an item it waits on changed status. It also renumbers the order of a phase when two neighbors sit too close together.

It clears expired sign-ins and links

It deletes every sign-in session past its expiry. It also deletes every email verification link and every password reset link that nobody used in time. It only removes rows that no longer work, so nobody sees a change. The product refuses an expired link and an expired sign-in whether or not the job runs. The job never deletes an invitation, and an expired invitation waits until somebody invites the person again. See Invitations.

It refreshes seats

When billing is connected, it sends each paying organization's member count to the billing provider. See Plans and billing.

The product sends no email and no notification about any of these acts.

Add work to a running or ended sprint

NeedsRun sprints sprint_run

You can plan an item into an Active sprint at any time. The state of the sprint alone raises no warning. You can also plan an item into an Ended sprint. The product warns with Sprint 3 has ended; work added now was never planned. and then moves the item. A Closed or Cancelled card does not accept a drop at all.

Two other warnings reach every sprint, an Active one included. The product warns when the item already sits in another sprint. It also warns when the item waits on items that are not planned earlier. Every rule on the planning screen warns and then proceeds, except the one below. See Sprint planning.

The project settings a sprint reads

NeedsManage the project project_manage

Three rows in the settings grid govern sprints. The product reads Sprint length and Sprint plan soft cap when it creates a sprint, and an existing sprint keeps what it got. It reads Unfinished items go to at each close. See Project settings.