Is there a better way to search for multiple issues at once?

[Robbie Pannell]

We are having some user adoption issues due to the inability to quickly search for multiple item keys at once.  It is possible to search for multiple issues at once, but requires formatting that isn't as streamlined as it was in our old system (Axosoft OnTime).

I understand that you can search for multiple issues in the following format:  "Issuekey in (TEST-10, TEST-12,TEST-16)"

Users are used to sending lists of items (often copying and pasting from excel), copying and pasting into a search bar and getting results.  Some lists could contain over a hundred items, which is why having to format it into "Issuekey in (TEST-10, TEST-12,TEST-16)" is quite a timesuck...

Does anyone know of a plugin or anything that would alleviate this qualm? 

[Daria Rybczak]

i use the following and it isnt too bad. I enter the ID numbers first (123, 124) then paste the project prefix for each one

Issuekey in (xxx-142, xxx-133, xxx-132, xxx-98, xxx-128)

[Walter Buggenhout]

Hi @Robbie Pannell,

You are entirely right about the timesuck and this type of search not being efficient.

It is rather likely that you can pull the list of issues you want to find together based on completely different criteria than the issuekeys.

If you are looking for a list of issues, it will probably be because:

• you want an overview of issues that you are the owner of and that are still unresolved
• you want a list of issues that have been updated in the last 2 days
• you want a list of issues that have been assigned to someone else this week
• you want to know which issues have not been updated for more than 3 weeks
• you want to combine any of those with a reference to a partner organisation somewhere in the outside world

All these searches are perfectly possible with JQL. I don't know how proficient you are in JQL yourself, but I can recommend this blogpost as an excellent starting point on how to search for issues in Jira using the power of JQL.

Maybe there is a good reason why users have been sending issue lists to one another, but I believe the key to overcoming your adoption problem is in trying to eliminate that practice. To do so, you might consider e.g. saving your key searches as filters and displaying the results through Jira Dashboards where your users can find them in real time. Anytime.

[LeKisha Boswell]

You can use the basic search function for string text like ID numbers. For example if I'm searching all issues associated to a custom numeric field (Tasklist ID 2015-00123), I can simply enter the text and all issues with the number listed will populate. You can then export the results.

You can also use other attributes for your search query such as custom fields, components, assignee, reporters, statuses, projects, priorities, parent epics, sprints, created/updated dates etc. 

Here are a few links to JIRA documentation that will elaborate on how to best use JIRA's search functions.

Search JIRA like a boss with JQL

https://confluence.atlassian.com/jiracore/blog/2015/07/search-jira-like-a-boss-with-jql

Advanced searching

https://confluence.atlassian.com/jirasoftwarecloud/advanced-searching-764478330.html

Advanced searching - functions reference

https://confluence.atlassian.com/jirasoftwarecloud/advanced-searching-functions-reference-764478342.html