[Official Atlassian Feedback required] Do you use smart query?

[April Chi]

Hi Community,

I'm a PM in Jira Software. My goal is to improve the findability of issues in Jira. I'm currently exploring ways to improve what we call quick search in the top right hand corner of Jira. 

I'd like to know - does anyone here use smart query (either in Server or Cloud)? For example, if you have a project key 'AI', if you search 'building AI app', it'll automatically apply search for 'building app' inside of project AI.

If you use smart query:

- how and when do you use it?

- what's your use case?

It'd be great if any users can vouch for it here, we've received feedback around disabling or removing it and we're exploring our options. 

Thank you and look forward to hearing back from you all.

Regards,

April

[John Funk]

I have mostly used it to search for people's names. It's hit or miss as to how well it does. Maybe if you look for the name in the Summary field first, then in the Assignee then Reporter fields if it can even do that. 

[Kelly Arrey]

Didn't know it worked that way.  Looks handy. Perhaps a wider search bar with a bit more contextual help would get people to use it more, for example

Quick Search, e.g., PRJ search words

and a contextual help button in the search bar (like you have on the JQL search bar) for further explanation.

[Kelly Arrey]

Having said that, this is weird.  I run a quick search query like:

PRJ MOD

It pops up the filter results page with the following query

`project = PRJ and text ~ MOD`, with 6 hits. So far, so good. Oh, and thank you for this little message:

Ok. Let's run the search without smart query:

Now you get one hit?  What? So what search were you actually running when you told me it was 6 hits? Perhaps this algorithm needs some more explanation. I'm not sure that burying the hits that meet the query under a mountain of questionably related tickets is helpful.

[April Chi]

Hey @Kelly Arrey , this helps a lot, thanks for the feedback! Are you saying you didn't know this feature existed? 

[Kelly Arrey]

Yes, I knew I could search for a specific issue by typing in the key, but I didn’t realize it supported more arbitrary text searches.

[Chris Mann]

I had no idea it was a 'smart query' - I only ever use it when I know the exact ticket number that I want to find. Other than that, I never really got the results I was expecting!

Of course, I don't when using "Filters - Advanced Filter Search" either, now that we have moved to the web!! - This automatic restriction to only search the last 30 days is infuriating!

[April Chi]

Hey @Chris Mann , thanks for the feedback! Are you referring to the default filter of created in the last 30 days in advanced search? Why is it a pain point for you? 

[Chris Mann]

Yes - that's the one!

It's a pain because when we want to search over ALL defects (not just the last 30 days) we have to clear it every time! I understand this was added as a 'speed improvement' in the past, but to us it is detrimental to almost every search our support engineers make!

Thanks!

[Chris Dunne {Raledo}]

Its a good question. I have trained many users on Jira Server/Data Center and now on cloud. All are impressed with Smart Queries but I've yet to find anyone that uses them in practice.

I think this is because its a feature that is no very obvious and it is too easy to forget the smart query keywords and capabilities.

[April Chi]

Cool, thanks @Chris Dunne {Raledo} for the feedback! Do you or your users have a use case for smart querying?