JIRA Ability to Export to Excel

Alexander Manea September 23, 2016

When I do a search on the issues and I hit the Export Button for the JIRA Software Server Version 7.1, I do not see the option to export the results to an Excel Spreadsheet.  Can anyone tell me what I am missing?  Below you will see the image of the Export formats and they do not include Excel:

 

image2016-9-23 10:23:16.png

7 answers

1 accepted

0 votes
Answer accepted
Philipp Suchan
Atlassian Team
Atlassian Team members are employees working across the company in a wide variety of roles.
November 8, 2019

See here for the official Jira Cloud to Excel export:  https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1221301/jira-cloud-for-excel-official

4 votes
Aron Gombas _Midori_
Community Leader
Community Leader
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July 17, 2017

I'd also suggest trying the Better Excel add-on as an alternative.

This has several advantages over the built-in feature, which may or may not create value in a use case.

1 vote
rute martins July 17, 2017

Hi,

I'd recommend Xporter for JIRA. Exports for different formats, also Excel, exports comments, worklogs, subtasks, etc. You can schedule reports  

And has a good template store and integrations with other add-ons and jira service desk.

1 vote
Kerrod
Atlassian Team
Atlassian Team members are employees working across the company in a wide variety of roles.
October 19, 2016

Hey everyone,

I just wanted to drop a quick message to let you all know I'm keeping an eye on this topic and it's something I recognise is very important to a lot of JIRA users. I empathise that much of what the xHTML export has is not in .csv the way we're all used to and have established processes around; and we're currently investigating solutions other than just 'turning it back on' that will benefit everyone in more significant ways. 

Until then, in cloud we've kept the xHTML report until we solve this problem. In server, customers will need to either remain on version 7.1 or prior, use an add-on, or identify another solution that will work for their unique business processes. 

We currently don't have an ETA on when we will solve this problem but we're using JAC and in particular, https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRA-62115, to understand the problem as best as possible before we have the resources available to approach a solution.

 

Thank you all for your patience and understanding.

Regards,

Kerrod Williams

JIRA Product Manager

Deleted user October 20, 2016

Thanks for the response Kerrod!

1 vote
Alexander Manea September 23, 2016

Thanks Tom for your answer.  I found the following that explains why they do not export to Excel anymore.  See the following :

 

"

Hi Everyone,

Thank you for commenting and watching this post over the last few weeks. We have read your comments and recognise the inconvenience that this bug may have caused since its initial occurrence.

What went wrong?

JIRA’s feature for exporting issues as an Excel file (.xls) works by creating an HTML file and saving it with an .xls suffix. Up until recently, this solution worked. However, a recent Microsoft Office security update (Microsoft Security Bulletin MS16-088 - Critical) now prevents these files from being opened if the user has a high security setting in place, as the change of the file extension is considered to be a security vulnerability.

What are we doing about this?

We don't believe that our HTML-based Excel export option is the best solution anymore, however we appreciate that many of you have built processes around it and its immediate removal may disrupt your daily operations. The HTML-based Excel export option will, for now, remain in JIRA Cloud.

This feature will be removed for Server in JIRA 7.2.

Our intention is to eventually deprecate the HTML-based Excel export option in JIRA Cloud also. We will announce this prior to the removal. In the meantime,we will change the .xls suffix to .html to reinforce that it isn't a native Excel file, and to make it easier to open it in web browsers. The exported .html file will also still be readable in Excel, if you have configured your environment appropriately (e.g. Plan Trusted Locations settings for Office 2010).

Recently, a new CSV-based Excel export option was released to JIRA Cloud, and will be in JIRA Server 7.2. We recommend you switch to this export option in the long term.

Will we develop a native Excel export option?

We are unlikely to provide a native Excel export in the foreseeable future. Having said that, there are many add-ons in the Atlassian Marketplace that provide this functionality.

Thanks for your patience and understanding.

Kind Regards,
Kerrod Williams
JIRA Product Management

"

Pawel Rozek October 13, 2016

We have found some inconsistencies between the Export to Excel and Export to CSV. One example is that in Export to Excel, we were able to export a field called Issue Links (which was now renamed to Links when viewing Printable)

When you export to CSV, the issue Links becomes:

Outward issue link (Blocks)Outward issue link (Blocks)Outward issue link (Blocks)Outward issue link (Blocks)Outward issue link (Cloners)Outward issue link (Duplicate)Outward issue link (Relates)Outward issue link (Relates)Outward issue link (Relates)Outward issue link (Relates)Outward issue link (Relates)Outward issue link (Relates)Outward issue link (Relates)Outward issue link (Relates)Outward issue link (Relates)Outward issue link (Relates)Outward issue link (Relates)Outward issue link (Relates)Outward issue link (Relates)

The second issue we've found is that for "Defect" types, the links don't show up, as all the links are "Outward" rather than "Inward"

Chuck Vanderwist October 19, 2016

The CSV export option has many flaws and should NOT be sold as a workaround for the removal of Excel exports.

Many fields do not export the same information or formatting in CSV as they show in the issue navigator. Just a few examples that are troubling my customers after our upgrade to 7.2.x:

  • User type fields show the UserID in CSV export, but Issue Navigator shows Full Name
  • Date / Time type fields show the time in total seconds for CSV export, but Issue Navigator shows Days, Hours, Minutes

I really wish Atlassian would think these things through a bit more before making decisions like this. I'd much rather change my Excel security settings, or modify the file's properties, than have to build custom macros to true up the data to make it an actual "Export"

Deleted user October 19, 2016

Totally agree with you Charles, the .csv export is NOT WYSIWYG and can lead to very odd results that make it almost unusable.

@Kerrod Williams - Do you really know what you are causing by this action? And sure, we all enjoy purchasing plug-ins for features you should be supplying. May need to start revisiting the competition. 

Chuck Vanderwist October 19, 2016

@Tom Proctor Thanks for weighing in here. I convinced the folks over at support.atlassian.com to open a feature request for me regarding this missing functionality. The ticket is JSW-15066 in case you'd like to add your consensus there along with a vote.

1 vote
Deleted user September 23, 2016

Your not missing anything (well except the Excel option), and this is a frequent question...

It was removed from 7.1, you'll need to use the CSV option (excel can open that).

A later version added an HTML export option which I think is better than .csv but that's just my opinion.

As to why they removed it, can't even guess.

Chris S. Andrews November 13, 2017

For using CSV, You lose the hotlinks on all of the issues, and CSV breaks out every Label into its own column. 

HTML does not allow you to sort, add/delete columns, etc.

This is a real issue for me since upgrading. 

Chris S. Andrews November 13, 2017

Tom Proctor provided this answer below for this issue, which I find acceptable:

 

"If you're on the cloud version, just export in HTML report (current fields). Then go to the file and open with excel. You will need to add the filters, etc. but you keep the links, and you can delete columns, add formulas, etc.

Just make sure that when you save it, you change to an xlsx file and not the default html.

A few extra steps, but has been working for me for the last year. Of course I'm on a mac, but would expect windows to work the same. The CSV approach is just ugly!

"

Like Denis Zvonov likes this
0 votes
Brad Warburton November 9, 2017

I'm coming late to this topic, as my organisation have just upgraded to the version that removes support for XLS export.  I find it frankly mind boggling that Atlassian has not come up with a solution other than forcing users to purchase add-ons.  An Excel export is a fundamental feature that any issue management system (or any system that has a query interface of any kind whatsoever) should support out of the box.  Atlassian are abusing their market share to force users to pay extra for 3rd party add-ins.  

Nic Brough -Adaptavist-
Community Leader
Community Leader
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November 9, 2017

The theory is that the CSV export is better, and Excel can read CSV.  (In fact, the old Excel option was not Excel, it was xml that said "hi, I'm a spreadsheet", so Excel and other spreadsheets knew how to read it)

They're not going to provide excel exports ever, it's always going to be something that is spreadsheet compatible. 

Main problem for me though is that the CSV export is badly written and not good enough as a replacement.  

Deleted user November 13, 2017

So...

If you're on the cloud version, just export in HTML report (current fields). Then go to the file and open with excel. You will need to add the filters, etc. but you keep the links, and you can delete columns, add formulas, etc.

Just make sure that when you save it, you change to an xlsx file and not the default html.

A few extra steps, but has been working for me for the last year. Of course I'm on a mac, but would expect windows to work the same. The CSV approach is just ugly!

Chris S. Andrews November 13, 2017

Tom - Thanks for this. It is a few extra steps, but I find this to be acceptable and much better than the alternative. Thanks for sharing.

Chris

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