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How are you simplifying project intake into Jira?

Jessica Alves

Hi everyone! In my organization, stakeholders submit business cases in Excel. We then enter that information into a project charter in Word.

I'm looking for an easier way to bring that information into Jira without entering it all again. Has anyone found an approach that works well?

I'd love to hear about options with or without system integration, including any ways you've used AI tools to help.

We use Copilot and Claude, but our Jira license doesn't include Rovo. I'd appreciate any suggestions or examples of what's worked for you!

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John Funk

Hi Jessica - Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

One way would be to convert the Excel file to a CSV and then import it into Jira, where it would create the work items automatically for you from the import.

Jessica Alves

Thank you, John!

Brant Schroeder

@Jessica Alves

If the stakeholders have access to your Jira instance you can create a Jira Form that they can use to submit their business case. If they do not have access, you could consider using Jira Service Management (JSM) where you could create a portal for project intake and they could submit their business case via a JSM form.

This is something that I have used in many different use cases to create a streamlined way to collect the information, map it to specific fields and use automation to improve communication and stakeholder satisfaction. Also, by getting them into the tool you can provide self-service options and reporting that promote transparence.

Here is some helpful information about Jira forms and JSM.

https://support.atlassian.com/jira-software-cloud/docs/what-are-forms-and-what-can-they-do/

https://support.atlassian.com/jira-service-management-cloud/docs/customize-the-look-and-feel-of-your-help-center-and-portal/

https://support.atlassian.com/jira-service-management-cloud/docs/what-are-forms/

Tomislav Tobijas

Hey @Jessica Alves ,

Ideally, people would enter things directly in Jira as Brant has already said. One question about AI — you mentioned Copilot and Claude. Are you on the Free plan in Jira, which is why you don't have Rovo? Or Rovo/AI is restricted by company policies? 👀

I'm asking because, as you have Claude, you could use Atlassian's MCP connector (I'm using the same just for ChatGPT) which is really cool and would 'transfer' things pretty fast! 😄
I'm 'moving' a lot of our local documentation into Jira and Confluence that way.

Cheers,
Tobi

Mertcan Karabaş (WERARE)

Hi @Jessica Alves,
What usually fixes this is treating the Excel business case as the intake form itself, not a document someone retypes. Lock the template to one row of named columns (sponsor, objective, budget, start/end, risk) that match your Jira fields one-to-one. A CSV import into an "Intake" work type then maps with no edits. When a business case arrives as free text, ask Claude to return it as CSV with exactly those columns. Run review and approval as workflow transitions on the intake item, so there's one record. After approval the charter doesn't need to live in Word.
We build Project Charter: you define properties like owner, status, dates and business-case fields once, fill them in on each Jira project, and see them as a list, board or timeline. https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1226357/project-charter?hosting=cloud&tab=overview

Olha Yevdokymova_SaaSJet

Hi @Jessica Alves,
Moving from Excel and Word to direct submission into Jira is the step that removes the retyping. Brant’s suggestion to collect business cases through a form is the right direction.

If some of your stakeholders don’t have Jira access, and adding JSM just for intake isn’t an option, another approach you might consider is Smart Forms for Jira (developed by my team). It works in Jira Software and business spaces as well as any other spaces:

Turn your Excel business case template into a form with AI form builder in one step: sponsor, objective, budget, dates, risks, with required fields and validation so nothing important is left out.
Share it externally by link, or embed it on a Confluence page. Stakeholders don’t need a Jira licence. Also you can set up an automation rule to send him form via slack, teams, email, etc, when the input needed
Smart Forms are mobile friedly so stackeholder can submit any time
Each submission creates a work item (for example an “Intake” type), with key answers mapped to Jira fields for filtering and reporting.
Push the full business case into theJ ira Description, so the charter content is in one place and doesn’t need a separate Word document.
Use conditional logic to show extra questions only for larger budgets or specific project types.
Calculation fields can total up costs automatically.

So you can get something like this:
→ the stakeholder submits the business case form
→ an intake work item is created with all the data already filled in
→ review and approval happen through workflow transitions on that same work item

Happy to help if you’d like to map your current Excel template to a form.

Jessica Alves

Thank you everyone for your thoughtful inputs.

To add some more context, the business case is being done in excel because it has complex formulas used to determine the value of the project. That excel is then being dropped into a model to help with prioritization.

We are not quite ready to use JIRA in the Project Management Office but IT is using it to manage their work and they don't seem to have Rovo.

I'm doing some exploratory research to find different ways to manage the Project Lifecycle and making a case for JIRA.

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