Announcement: Important Update in Jira Cloud for Google Sheets and Excel Integrations

[#1]

Dear Jira Community,

We are reaching out to inform you about upcoming changes to the Jira Cloud for Google Sheets and Jira Cloud for Microsoft Excel integrations. These updates are designed to enhance the reliability of your data imports.

Effective Date

16 December 2024

Context and Changes

Many of you have encountered reliability issues when importing Jira issues into your spreadsheets. To effectively address these concerns, we are implementing fundamental improvements to the core issue import functionality. Consequently, we will be removing the offset functionality available in the Jira.JQL() function in Jira Cloud for Excel and the JIRA() function in Jira Cloud for Google Sheets.

What you need to know

For Jira Cloud for Microsoft Excel Users

Old function → Jira.JQL(jql, [fields], offset, maxRows)

New function → Jira.JQL(jql, [fields], maxRows)

For Jira Cloud for Google Sheets Users

Old function → JIRA(jql, columns, offset, limit)

New function → JIRA(jql, columns, limit)

Migration Guidance

This is a breaking change and we understand that migrating existing spreadsheets might seem daunting, but rest assured, we're here to help. Here's how you can adjust to these changes:

• Utilize the Limit Parameter: Without the offset, you can still import as many issues as you need by configuring the limit parameter. This allows you to control the size of your data import.

• Leverage JQL Queries or Filters: You can refine your imports by using JQL queries or filters to specify the exact data you need, which is supported in both the Jira Cloud for Microsoft Excel and Jira Cloud for Google Sheets add-ons.

Benefits of This Change

• Improved Data Reliability: By eliminating the offset, the new system ensures more consistent and dependable data imports.

• Scalability: The new API changes are designed to support larger, more complex use cases efficiently.

Technical Details and Background

These changes are influenced by core updates to the Jira APIs. The new APIs will adopt a token-based pagination system, which enhances performance by removing the need for offsets.

For further technical insights and to understand the broader context of these changes, please refer to our detailed API changes announcement post. This post outlines the introduction of new endpoints and the removal of certain existing ones to enhance scalability and performance.

Support

We acknowledge that these changes may require adjustments to your current processes. Our goal is to ensure a seamless transition that ultimately enhances your experience with improved reliability.

Please feel free to reach out with any questions or concerns. Thank you for your understanding and continued support.

Best regards,

Atlassian Team

[Jeremy Benson]

I think this update changed how the API rate limits work for the google sheets add-on because starting on Dec 16 2024 I'm getting tons of rate limit errors in all of my sheets now. It's causing a lot of pain.

[MobilityStream]

@Jeremy Benson

Another option would be to try our Google Sheets Integration add-on. It works differently and is more robust for large and reoccurring exports. Unless you update thousands of issues every day & everything is set to real-time, you won't hit the quota.

We also have a corresponding add for Excel 365 & Desktop. 

Kind regards,

The Mobility Team

[Derek Boutang]

With no ability to offset rows, how do you now return large data sets?

In my system, anything >1,000 rows returned generates the following error:

#ERROR!

Exceeded maximum execution time (line ).

[alvin_oh]

Ever since this update, i'm not able to import the 'Description' & 'Acceptance Criteria' fields to Google sheet.
These 2 information are crucial for planning and reporting as a PO within my organisation.

:( Can we get this fix in place??

[Mazuca]

After this update we can't import issues if we select the status.transition fields (date, from, to etc.)

We use this for dashboards and SLAs.

[Filipe Costa]

We are having the same problem that @Mazuca reported. 

[Joel Charlebois]

My reporting is now bricked. 

Getting: Error Reference does not exist. 

When query is returning the following data points: Transition.From, Transition.To, Transition.Date, Transition.Id

EDIT: Resolved. 

[Richard Hemming]

1 - Dates added in Jira rich text boxes by using // are no longer imported, they were before

2 - Text Fields with URLs in them are not importing anymore (can't use URL field as the content is too long)

[Joe]

Work Log fields no longer appear to be being returned since the update. The column headers are added, but no data is in the columns. 

[Samyak Mehta]

Hello everyone,

TL;DR:

• A few issues that were identified have now been resolved.
• Exciting enhancements to this integration are planned for 2025!

Details:

We sincerely appreciate your patience.

Following our recent release on December 16th, we identified that some customers experienced a few issues, particularly related to importing fields with complex data formats, such as descriptions, worklogs and a few more.

We have successfully implemented a series of improvements that address and resolve the majority of these issues. Please be assured that we are actively monitoring the situation to manage any further concerns effectively. We understand how valuable this integration is, and we plan to enhance it further in 2025 to improve your experience.

Your continued support and feedback are invaluable to us as we strive to provide you with the best possible product. Thank you for being a valued member of our community. If you have any questions or encounter any issues, please do not hesitate to contact our support team.

Best regards,

Atlassian Team

[Evgeniy Shemchuk]

@Samyak Mehta 

Not sure if the update caused it, but JIRA function now returns an error ("Reference does not exist") when the JQL doesn't match any issues. Whereas before, it used to return a single header row with the names of the requested fields.

Any way to change it to the previous behavior?

[Jeremy Benson]

Seeing the same thing as @Evgeniy Shemchuk and unfortunately it looks like you can't even wrap the function in iferror or ifna, it will show the reference error no matter what you do. This is inconsistent with expected behavior for google sheets functions. I agree that returning the headers with no results would be the ideal behavior.