NOT IN operator is not returning proper results

Question

In our system, "Product Division" custom field is set with multiple values.

project = PSRC AND issuetype = Incident AND "Product Division" = "Services & Digital"

is returning results as expected, i.e. all tickets with Product Division = Services & Digital.

When I am using != operator,

project = PSRC AND issuetype = Incident AND "Product Division" != "Services & Digital"

it is returning only the tickets with Product Division = Unknown, where as there are multiple other product divisions.

same issue with

project = PSRC AND issuetype = Incident AND "Product Division" NOT IN ("Services & Digital")

What am I doing wrong here. My intent is to filter out all issues across product divisions but "Services & Digital".

Using Jira v7.11.0

Arkadeep Kundu · Answer

Thanks for your prompt responses Dave.

It's appearing in auto-complete

This is a custom field.

Please mind that project = PSRC AND issuetype = Incident AND "Product Division" = "Services & Digital" is working as expected. The moment I add the ! operator, the problem arises.

Dave Theodore [Coyote Creek Consulting] · Answer

What type of field is "Product Division?" Did auto-complete show this value? If auto-complete isn't displaying the value, it's a good indication that something is wrong with your syntax.

Arkadeep Kundu · Answer

There are 25 product divisions listed in the project. In short, I am trying to list out all issues not pertaining to "Services & Digital". Hence I tried -

project = PSRC AND issuetype = Incident AND "Product Division" != "Services & Digital"

it is returning only the tickets with Product Division = Unknown. Then I tried -

project = PSRC AND issuetype = Incident AND "Product Division" NOT IN ("Services & Digital")

It is also giving similar results. Hence, I was trying to understand, what I am missing.