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How to make filter results look like a flat Excel spreadsheet

Justine Lions

Hey… our Sandbox was a bit behind Prod so it hasn't been until I went to Prod that I discovered that the filter results macro had been fully depreciated.

The replacement that Rovo recommended seems to introduce a lot of unnecessary space such that I end up with scroll bar and the table is 3x the size it should be

The previous widget looked professional and neat and appropriate to share. This may not meet what is required by the business because of the layout.

Note:

Dashboards do not have all the functionality needed for this work - we need to provide contextual information
It can't be a flat table
We don't use 3rd party apps because of security and maintenance concerns

Are there any other suggestions?

Accepted answers

Danut M _StonikByte_

Hi @Justine Lions,

Make sure to use the new Jira Work Items macro instead of the deprecated Filter Results macro.

I looked into this a bit, and unfortunately, the new macro still doesn't make very efficient use of the available space. It seems to have a limited height, resulting in a vertical scrollbar for longer lists. The horizontal spacing also appears to be less efficient. You could try adjusting the number of displayed columns to make better use of the available space.

Unfortunately, I don't see any other way to address this limitation apart from considering an app from the Atlassian Marketplace. If you decide to use an app in the future, our Great Gadgets app offers a Pivot Table & Pivot Chart macro that can display issues from a filter in a more compact, Excel-like table. You simply need to configure it to hide the totals row and column.

Here is an example showing the difference:

Danut.

All comments

Mia Tamm _Simpleasyty_

Hi @Justine Lions,

I can see why this is frustrating, especially when the results need to sit alongside explanatory content and look professional enough to share.

Which replacement did Rovo suggest? It would help to know whether the extra space comes from the table itself or the container around it.

On your security concern, one distinction that may be useful for your team is Atlassian’s Runs on Atlassian badge. Qualifying apps use Atlassian-hosted compute and storage, support data residency aligned with the host product, and give admins control over permitted external analytics and log sharing. That addresses some hosting and data-handling concerns, although it doesn’t remove the need to review app permissions or your maintenance requirements.

For transparency, I’m on the product team at Simpleasyty, where we build Runs on Atlassian apps. I appreciate that your policy may still rule out third-party apps; I thought the distinction was worth sharing for your security team.

Artyom Karpets _ArtUp Labs_

Hi Justine, the Jira gadgets (Filter Results included) are no longer supported in Confluence Cloud, and the native replacement is the Jira work items macro (type /Jira, or paste a Jira filter or search URL into the page). I tried it on a test site today. Most of the extra size comes from a few things you can change:

Horizontal scroll bar. The list keeps a minimum width for every column, so on a fixed-width page the last columns get cut off. Select the macro and click the ↔ icon at its right edge: it widens to the full page width and the horizontal scroll goes away.
Too many columns. The column icon at the top right of the list lets you untick fields you don't need (Type, Assignee, Priority, Updated and so on). The ••• next to it has "Wrap text in all columns", and clicking a column header lets you wrap one column only, so long summaries don't stretch the table.
Vertical scroll bar. The list area has a fixed maximum height (about a dozen rows on my test page) and shows the first 20 work items; the rest are behind the "N items" link that opens the search in Jira. I found no setting to change that height. If everything has to be visible without scrolling, split the filter into several smaller macros (by status, component or epic) with your explanatory text between them.
If a sentence only needs the number, switch List to Inline link in the insert dialog: it shows the count of results as a link inside your text.

If the page is a point-in-time report rather than a live view, another native route is Export > CSV (current fields) from the Jira search, then paste the rows into an ordinary Confluence table. It looks like the old compact table, but it does not update.

Drafted with an AI assistant and reviewed by me.

Danut M _StonikByte_

Hi @Justine Lions,

Make sure to use the new Jira Work Items macro instead of the deprecated Filter Results macro.

Here is an example showing the difference:

Danut.

Tomislav Tobijas

Hi @Justine Lions ,

Just to be clear, we're talking about 'differences' between these two macros? Jira Data Center is actually the legacy one.

One thing related to automatic conversion is this bug: CONFCLOUD-84619: Automatic conversion of the legacy Jira Issue Macro is not retaining the column order

There are a couple of things people also noticed with this new macro compared to the old one, but I haven't used the old one that much to say we're lacking specific things or have blockers using those.

One nice-to-have thing that would be cool is that you can 'limit the number of results' (per page/expand) and use a custom number.

Anyway, any chance you can share screenshots or examples of what things look like at the moment? And which exact blank space are we talking about here? 👀
*just a note that this is a public forum, so don't share any sensitive or confidential info

Cheers,
Tobi

CelesteCS

Hi, I'm Alexey 'Ce' from CelesteCS.

@Justine Lions , if what you need is the old compact, spreadsheet-like look, with the columns you choose and room for explanatory text around it, an app can render your filter as an ordinary Confluence table. With our CelesteCS Reporting for Confluence:

A Reporting Jira Data Provider takes your saved filter or JQL, e.g. filter = 12345.
A Reporting Table View shows one column per field, in your order and with your own headers: key, summary, status, assignee, dates, custom fields.
The result is a normal Confluence table: columns wrap to the page width, so there is no horizontal scroll, and it sits inline with the rest of your page content.
Optional: totals in the footer (Sum/Count), calculated columns, row highlighting, and Filters for readers (search, column filters and sorting for everyone who views the page).

Step-by-step example: A Jira report on a Confluence page that readers can filter and sort

The app is on the Atlassian Marketplace: CelesteCS Reporting for Confluence (free trial, Cloud and Data Center).

Justine Lions

Its the one in the plus menu

After this post I had an idea that seems to have worked … sort of… I copied an older page that had the gadget working and i can sort of adjust it… sort of.

Functionally for our business purposes they are the same - excepting that a very specific top project requirement was that the register have the same look and feel and flat display of the existing Excel spreadsheet - and the new gadget does not do that.

I don't know what you mean by this "'limit the number of results' (per page/expand) and use a custom number."

Difference shown in pictures

that's same scale of browsers - the new gadget uses a lot more screen real estate.

We are not concerned with number of results on a page at this point in time.

Justine Lions

Thanks. I hope your product does well.

We get audited every other day so maintaining and checking 3rd party software is a real burden for us. We really try to limit what we use and there is not enough of a business case to support a 3rd party tool in this case

Justine Lions

I did find one work around… find a page where the filter is working, copy it and try to adjust… it um… sometimes works? Thank you for your comparison pictures

And good luck with your product.

We get audited every other day so maintaining and checking 3rd party software is a real burden for us. We really try to limit what we use and there is not enough of a business case to support a 3rd party tool in this case

Justine Lions

still not comparatively scaling
I've culled as much as I can to retain a match to the original Excel spreadsheet display and useability. It's still scaling in an oversized way.
Not too fussed about vertical scaling in a whole table way. It would look unbalanced though if they removed the excess vertical space without moving the excess horizontal space though is my guess.
There is no sentences that can be replaced by numbers - the point of this page display is an easy overview for a manager and team to assess the state of play and drill in when detail is required via the links on the key/summary

This is not a point in time report - the 15 min refresh is sufficient for the pacing of the work being done in this space.

Exporting to CSV opposes the original intention to drive towards data standardisation as it moves people away from the point of truth.

Justine Lions

Rovo suggested Jira Work Items

Thank you for explaining "Runs on Atlassian" - its still 3rd party though. We get audited every other day so maintaining and checking 3rd party software is a real burden for us. We really try to limit what we use and there is not enough of a business case to support a 3rd party tool in this case

I hope your product does well. If I was at a larger organisation with more resources to support I would investigate use for us

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