Why can only one sprint be active at a time?

In LocalPM, a project can have any number of sprints in Planning or Completed, but only one Active sprint at a time. The Kanban board is built around that single active sprint: while one is running, the Board shows only its stories.

What happens if you start a second sprint

If you click Start Sprint while another sprint in the same project is active, LocalPM asks you to confirm first. The dialog explains that the current sprint will be marked Completed, including any unfinished stories in it. If you confirm, the old sprint is completed and the new one becomes active. If you cancel, nothing changes.

Completing the old sprint this way has consequences:

• The old sprint appears in the Velocity chart in Reports, even if you didn't mean to end it yet.
• Its unfinished stories stay attached to it. They won't appear on the board for the new sprint until you edit each story and change its Sprint field.
• Completed sprints can't be reopened.

So read the confirmation carefully, and cancel if you didn't mean to end the current sprint yet.

If you need parallel work

Plenty of teams want two streams running at once. A few options:

• Use separate projects. Each project has its own sprints, so two teams or two clients can each have an active sprint. Switch between them from the dashboard.
• Use epics inside one sprint. Put both streams in the same sprint and group the stories under different epics, each with its own color, so they're easy to tell apart.
• Use labels. Add a workstream name to each story's Labels field so everyone knows which stream it belongs to.

Why it works this way

One active sprint keeps the board, the progress bar, and the velocity numbers unambiguous: every story on the board belongs to the same time-box and the same commitment. If you're wondering when it's right to end a sprint early, read When to close a sprint early and how to handle the fallout. Running several clients at once? How a freelancer uses LocalPM to juggle five client projects shows the separate-projects approach.

To learn more about sprint statuses, see How do I start and complete a sprint?.