Integrating Jira Filters with Excel

[#1]

Do you regularly download the same Jira filters to Excel to create pivot tables and reports? If you do, you need to know how to use Excel’s built-in ability to retrieve CSV data directly from the Web and how to use it to make updating these reports simple and fast.

For reasons that are not at all clear to me - I can't seem to post the full text of this article on the Community Board. So, if you really want to learn how to create re-usable Excel spreadsheets that can draw their data directly from Jira and be refreshed automatically, follow this link to my other blog area. 

I hope next week to be able to post another article directly on the Atlassian Community.

[Deleted user]

really nice article, I'm trying to follow your guide by adapting the instructions for Apple Numbers (the ideal would be for Google Sheets to tell the truth, because I do not use Excel and like me many other people).

[Albert van der Vlis]

Hey Derek, using this for a while now and it works like a dream, however there is one issue I need some help with. First of all to paint the situation. We export issues from a project to reconcile this with information we get from another (external) system. This reconciliation is easy, but the number of issues can reach the 1000 limit, therefore we included a parameter in the JQL based on the creation date.

When importing the data into Excel, one the things that will happen, for instance with the Sprint field, is that in excel it will create multiple columns for all the sprints passed, no issue so far. The challenge occurs when I change parameter of the creation date to a later date, the number of sprint columns will decrease in Excel. And it does not like this and I get an error like:

An error occurred in the ‘SearchRequest-35312’ query. Expression.Error: The column 'Sprint_14' of the table wasn't found

How do I resolved this?

[Kroupova, Kristyna]

Hi Derek,

Helpful article about running it on the Jira server. It worked for a while, but I noticed some problems with different filters. The issue I am facing is not seeing a good final result. That means that I do not see a "correct" preview before loading. Sometimes I see:

or only tree structure (with document option can be selected ) and after loading, it looks like:

Any thoughts why and how to resolve?

Thanks

[Derek Fields]

@Kroupova, Kristyna - It looks like you have a login problem with Excel. If you look at the lines that Jira is returning, you will see

<title>Sign in to your account</title>

This indicates that Jira is returning a login page instead of the output of the filter.

[Kroupova, Kristyna]

Thanks for a tip, shall I just investigate login issue directly in Jira? Not sure how to fix it

[Derek Fields]

@Kroupova, Kristyna If you are able to log into Jira and access the filter, then the problem is on the Excel side. You need to make sure that you have set up Basic authorization with your username/password in Excel. Excel needs to pass your username/password as part of the filter request

[Kroupova, Kristyna]

I got it but not sure where to amend that, I cannot see it in the Setting option

[Eduardo Reza]

Hello Derek. 

I connected and all the connections are success. But The content of the document I see is only this

And not all the content of the filter.

If I open the CSV link it open all the filter data but not here :(

Thanks in advance for any help

[Derek Fields]

@Eduardo Reza - Welcome to the community.

I'm glad you raised the question. My example was taken from a Data Center version of Jira. For Cloud, you have to set your security using an API token.

To create the API token,

• Go to your Avatar picture and select "Account Settings".
• On that page, select "Security"
• From the Security page, click on "Create and manage API tokens"
• Click on "Create API token". Give it a name and make sure you copy it to a safe place. You will not be able to recover this API token if you lose it

Once you have an API token, set your Authentication method using Basic. Use your email address as your username and the token as your password. 

This will allow you to retrieve the data.

[Eduardo Reza]

Thanks Derek.

It worked. But I am only able to export 1000 fields .

Is there a way to export more than 1000?

Thanks again

[Derek Fields]

@Eduardo Reza - No, 1,000 records is the maximum in Cloud in a single download. In order to download the next 1,000, you need to add "&startAt=1001" to the URL and then keep updating it.

I am sure that there is a way to automate it in Excel so that you can download everything 1K records at a time, but I haven't had a chance to work on that.

[lihi marzuk]

thanks @Derek Fields  works great! any tips to make my issues key to present as link to the ticket and not only the number? 

[Derek Fields]

You can add a new column with this formula

="https://<jira_url>/browse/"&A2

Replace <jira_url> with your actual URL and A2 with the correct cell for where the Issue Key is displayed. Excel should display it as a link.

You can either do this manually after you refresh the data or you can update the transformation to add this column as a step when the data is refreshed.

Hope this helps.

[Oleksandr Chalyi]

@Derek Fieldsgood day.

You mentioned "You need to make sure that you have set up Basic authorization with your username/password in Excel" - does it mean that with SSO implemented current Jira server - excel integration is not possible?

[Derek Fields]

@Oleksandr Chalyi I don't think that there is any way to use SSO because of the way that SAML works. I believe that you need to use Basic Authorization. 

[Oleksandr Chalyi]

Thanks, @Derek Fields , for super prompt response!

[Samuli Miettinen]

Hey. Link to the article does not seem to work. Is it possible to update it?

[Derek Fields]

@Samuli Miettinen - Thanks for pointing this out. My company is apparently making updates to the website and didn't tell me. Let me see what I can do. I'll post here when I get it sorted out.

[Derek Fields]

@Samuli Miettinen Just a thought - Jira Cloud now has a built in export to Excel button on the Advanced Filter that will export your data to an excel spreadsheet.