Finding Things in Jira - Basic Search & JQL

[Robert Hean]

tl;dr

1. "Basic" search isn't so basic
2. JQL ("Jayquill") is awesome (link to Atlassian's JQL documentation)
3. Come learn it with me in this free, live training

One of the biggest sources of frustration I've seen in Jira is that folks struggle to find work items. One one hand it sounds a bit silly - after all there is that giant search bar at the top of the screen... however as instances grow it can become increasingly hard to find specific work items (or even find groupings of them to dig through).

First Step - Basic Search

There is a "basic" search in Jira. I put it in quotes since it is a relatively powerful way to search.  It extends beyond the search bar by allowing you to do things like:

1. Include (or exclude) fields in your search
2. Look for specific terms across various fields
3. Filter results by any field

And it's all done via a very simple visual interface (e.g. click and select what you want).

Next Step - JQL ("Jayquill") ("Jayquill" is how I pronounce JQL - help me make this a real thing! :D)

While the "basic" search is incredibly useful, there are some things it can't do. For example, it can't figure out what date was three weeks and and only show work items created after that date. It can't find SLA's (Service Level Agreements) that breached their goal, but then restarted.

This is where JQL ("Jayquill") comes in. JQL stands for "Jira Query Language" and is a powerful way to search through Jira. (JQL may sound a bit familiar if you're familiar with SQL. If so the general idea is similar - however - they are different things!).

JQL does require a bit deeper understanding than the "basic" search - however - it is a skill I use daily, and one that makes me feel (and seem like!) a wizard.

At it's core JQL requires us to have 3 things:

1. Field - This is where we're looking for something. "Assignee", "Created" and "Summary" are all examples.
2. Operator - How we'll compare the value to the field. "=" (equals), "<" (less than" and "IN" are all examples.
3. Value - What we're looking for. "Robert" is an example of "Assignee".

Having these 3 things lets us build a query, like this one:

 assignee = "Robert Hean"

This is asking Jira to find any work item where the assignee is equal to Robert Hean. A complete combination of field/operator/value is called a clause.

This, however, is just the start. We can combine multiple clauses to create more complex queries using operators. For example

  assignee = "Robert Hean" AND "Type" = "Story"

This will ask Jira to show me work items where Robert Hean is the assignee AND the work type is a Story.

What's next?

This is just scratching the surface - but I bet you can start to imagine what you can do with JQL.

If you're curious join me next Thursday (October 30th) and 9 AM PST to get a live demo of JQL - and bring your questions!

Also check out the resources below and drop your questions in the comments - I'm happy to help answer them (as, I imagine, others are as well!).

Resources

1. Official JQL documentation

Some youtube videos on JQL: