Workfront Boards: random movement of cards

[RT_Ops]

Hi folks, I've got a fairly nice Workfront kanban board built and in use now. Intake from a request queue, auto assignments and tags from column to column, Slack integration for updating and proofing, etc. I've been managing the board myself during stand up and am now keen to embed it more thoroughly with each of the team updating directly into it. The new interface has been helpful in re-engaging the team with Workfront.

However, every now and then it does what Workfront loves to do - ie something weird and inexplicable no doubt arising from its highly complex workings - and just moves a load of my cards back to earlier columns, such that I can't risk damaging confidence in Workfront by sharing it out until resolved.

Anyone encountered this? Anyone got an idea why it might happen? All cards stay in a constant "In Progress" status once they leave the backlog until closure, so shouldn't be driven by status changes. Honestly can't come up with a logical reason so please shout if you've experienced it and have any insight!

[KatherineLa]

Fellow admin beta-testing the Boards here, and I've seen similar behavior with two causes I've pinned down so far. 

tl;dr - The auto-update of the card/issue's Status field is a feature in need of some bug spray, try disabling that and seeing if your Board behaves more predictably.

Sample One - : 

1. I have a column set-up with auto-status assignment to update to "In Progress" when the card is moved to that column.
2. While working in a completely unrelated column with no auto-status assignment settings, I update a card status there to 'In Progress'.
3. My auto-status assignment 'In Progress' column gets jealous, and pulls that card over from wherever it belongs.
4. If I manually move my wayward card back into the proper column, it then stays there.

Sample Two - :

1. I had more than one column set-up with an auto-status assignment to the same status. This was my attempt to break-down visually concepts like "In Progress - Because I'm Working On It" versus "In Progress - Waiting On User Response" without adding more actual status options. 
2. Move a card to any one of those columns - several options occur:
   1. Card fails to move entirely, error code displays and card floats back to original position
   2. Card disappears entirely for awhile, eventually reappearing in a random column
   3. Card appears to move to the new column, but will later move itself to another or back to it's original column
3. As you noted, periodically card(s) that had been in 'In Progress - Not On Fire Enough' would simply appear in the 'In Progress - Not My Fire-Drill' column without one of us touching it. 

If my semi-educated guess is correct, whatever is behind my first sample is being amplified in the second. If setting an auto-assignment of a status causes that column to try and "own" any card on the board in that status, then having multiple columns setting to the same status would cause a tug-of-war between the matching columns as well.

At minimum, I can state that disabling the auto-update of the record's status setting temporarily has resolved all the behaviors described above. Here's to hoping for a service pack sometime soon that fixes some of this! 

[RandyRoberts]

I have seen the exact same behavior in my instance. No need for me to re-phrase the exact same behavior except to say "what @KatherineLa said".

I also noticed there is a "Column" and a "Status" dropdown on each card now. If you have your column set to auto change the status, selecting one will affect the other but it won't always move to the correct column.