Why can't I export Story points field to Excel

[Fabian van den Barselaar]

When I search for issues, I want to include the Story Points field. But the export current fields or export All fields skip my story points fields.

What am I doing wrong?

Anyone else experience strange behaviour when exporting to excel? Sometimes it exports only a few columns and skips the rest.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Accepted solution]

It skips columns when

• They aren't valid for the search (although you can rule this out - if you see the columns on your issue navigator, you should get them if you "export current fields")
• The fields do not have an output template defined for Excel view.

This is a bit odd though, because Story points do have an output template and I get them out. Could you check that they appear in your issue navigator ok, have a look at the RSS version of the output and let us know what version of Jira you're on?

[Fabian van den Barselaar]

In the RSS output I can see story points, but directly after export current fields to excel, the story points column is dissapeared from the table.

We are using 6.1.6

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Hmm. This rings a bell - could you try a quick experiment?

• Run a new simple filter for something that will pull out story points
• Check excel output
• Save the filter
• Re run it
• Check excel output

[Fabian van den Barselaar]

unfortunate same result, when I save the filter the field dissapears

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Ok, I think you've run into https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/GHS-10303then - I'm not sure how to work around this one :-(

[John Duncan]

I found that this was because the field I wanted to include in the export was not valid for some issue types. My list included stories and sub-tasks, but 'User Story' was not valid for sub-tasks. Whilst they still displayed in the filter, the export missed out the field I wanted and then disappeared from the filter, saved or not.

Adding the filter "and issuetype!=sub-task" removed those items and the Excel export then worked correctly.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

In other words "they aren't valid for the search", as per the original answer.

[John Duncan]

"if you see the columns on your issue navigator, you should get them if you "export current fields""

I saw them on my navigator initially, but 1) the column did not appear in the export, and 2) it disappeared when the view was refreshed. So as a casual observer (and not having an in-depth knowledge of the field structures of my issue types), it wasn't working. I had hoped that my resolution might assist others who were thinking "of course they're valid for my search, they're THERE!"

EDIT - I found the suggestion for this here:

https://answers.atlassian.com/questions/229090/column-is-not-appearing-in-issue-export-excel

[Fabian van den Barselaar]

due to index problem this maybe happened. Now it is working

[Katie Sissons]

Yup, we have this problem. Super annoying.

Everytime you add "Story Points", it immediately gets erased upon doing "Save As", or changing the query or refreshing the page. Even when it shows in the columns, it is not in the excel file.

BUT! Here's how to work around it! 

1) Go to filter
2) Edit the query (maybe change sort order to make a small change)
3) Add columns (like Story Points)
4) SAVE filter (do not refresh page)
5) Export "current fields only"

If you don't save the filter first, the column will disappear in the excel file.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

So, "use it as built", rather than "work around".