Is it possible to have a bidirectional integration with Excel?

Question

I am trying to get updates in an excel spreadsheet to update the respective custom fields within a Jira ticket. I have the excel add-in from Jira where tickets will update in the spreadsheet when I refresh it (either manually or on a schedule), but I need the integration to go the other way as well. We have users who will be updating the spreadsheet (and will not be in Jira on a day-to-day basis) and I don't want to have to manually put those changes into each ticket in Jira. Is this even possible? I searched the marketplace and thought I found a good solution, but it turns out to be essentially the same as the add-in I already have but with a cost.

Gaia Sargent · Answer

Hey Hannes,

Thanks for your reply and for your suggestion! Unfortunately, I am looking for a solution that would work for users in Excel. However, I will take this option to my team and consider it for the future! It looks like a super cool option. Thanks again for sharing :)

Hannes Obweger - JXL for Jira · Answer

Hi @Gaia Sargent

welcome to the community!

I'm not personally aware of a full two-way integration with Excel - but perhaps someone else has an idea.

Just as food for thought: If you're open to solutions from the Atlassian Marketplace, you may want to have a look at the app that my team and I are working on, JXL for Jira.

JXL is a full-fledged spreadsheet/table view for your issues that allows viewing, inline-editing, sorting, and filtering by all your issue fields, much like you’d do in e.g. Excel or Google Sheets. This is all happening in Jira, based on live Jira data - i.e., making a change in your JXL sheet immediately updates the respective issue, and vice versa.

This is how it looks in action:

I know that this isn't exactly what you're looking for, but if, for your users, it's more about a spreadsheet experience rather than using Excel specifically, I feel it may be an interesting option.

I should also add that JXL can do much more the above: From support for configurable issue hierarchies, to issue grouping by any issue field(s), sum-ups, or conditional formatting.

Any questions just let me know,

Best,

Hannes