Load Jira Issues in Excel
To load Jira issues in the currently selected Excel worksheet, follow these steps:
Select Load Data under the Jira ribbon.
Select one of the options for loading issues in Excel:
Project: Select a project from the list.
Saved filter: Select the Filters tab and choose a filter from the list.
JQL: Select the JQL tab and enter a JQL query. The expression can be validated before proceeding.
Select Next.
Select the Jira fields to be loaded. Key, Project key, Issue Type and Summary are required. (The choice of fields is saved for future sessions.)
Select Finish.
After loading the data, the Jira issues are displayed in the worksheet, one row per issue - for example:
A number of fields are read only. Some examples are Key, Project Key, Issue Type, Workflow Status, Creator. The color scheme of the column headers identifies such read only fields:
Dark gray: should not be modified
Light gray: may be freely modified
An attempt to update Jira with any of these fields modified is refused and reported as an error.
The value of the Resolution field of an unresolved issue is always empty, following the standard practice in Jira.
Reload Jira Issues
To reload issues in the currently selected Excel worksheet, simply load the issues again in the worksheet. Any values that have been changed in Excel are overwritten with the current values in Jira. You will be prompted to confirm the action.
Update Jira Issues
To update Jira issues from Excel, follow these steps:
Load the Jira issues to be updated, making sure the desired fields are selected.
Modify the fields of the issues you want to update.
Optionally, select the Check option to review the values that have been changed in Excel vs. the current Jira values.
Select Upload Data.
A summary report after the upload lists successfully updated issues, warning and errors.
After the upload the Excel content is compared to the current Jira issue values. This can be blocked by deselecting the option above the Close button.
The add-in does not check whether modified values have been concurrently changed in Jira. The new values in Excel overwrite the values in Jira. If you suspect that issues are being changed in Jira while you are working with the issues in Excel, you can take the following precautions:
Update issues frequently rather than accumulating many changes.
Use the Check option frequently to see if the values you see in Excel are different from those in Jira.
Create New Jira Issues
The recommended way to create new issues is to use a worksheet in which existing issues have already been loaded. To create a new issue, add a row with the desired values in the columns, leaving the Key column empty. (Note that Issue Type and Summary are required.) After preparing the new issues, select Upload Data. A summary of the results of the operation (including any errors) is then displayed.
If you don’t intend to use the worksheet to update issues or to create links between new issues and existing issues, you may delete the rows for existing issues and use the worksheet as a template for creating new issues.
In case you want to upload new issues to Jira from scratch, follow these steps:
Prepare an Excel worksheet with the following required column headings: Key, Project Key, Issue Type, Summary. Depending on your project configuration, additional fields may be required. Add additional optional fields as needed, using the names of the Fields in Jira as column headers.
Add rows with the the new values for the issues to be created, leaving the Key column empty.
Select Upload Data.
Check Data
Before uploading, you can compare the data in Excel to the current values in Jira using the Check option:
Fields with differences are shown with a yellow background.
If the configuration option “Show changed values as Excel comments“ is enabled for the Jira instance, the differences are displayed in Excel comments.
This feature is useful since the issues in Jira may have been changed since the data was loaded in Excel.