Configuration of Jira connection
Steps to setup connection:
- Download and install R4J Microsoft Excel add-in. Click here to get the latest version.
If problems occur during installation, install Visual Studio 2010 Tools for Office Runtime.
- Open MS Excel and check if Jira ribbon is now available.
- Click the Settings option under the Jira ribbon. To connect, enter your Jira server url, login username, and password.
- Click the Test button to check if add-in can successfully connect to your Jira server.
Loading Jira Issues in Excel
To load Jira issues to your excel spreadsheet,
- Select Load Data under the Jira ribbon.
- There are 3 available options to import Jira issues to your excel spreadsheet.
- by Project (default active tab), select a project from the list.
- by using your Jira filters, click on the Filters tab and select a filter from the list.
- by writing your own JQL, click on the JQL tab and enter your JQL query. (You can also validate your JQL before clicking next)
- Click Next.
- Configure Jira fields to include in the import by including the desired fields as selected fields.
- Key, Project key, Issue type and Summary are default required selected fields.
- Click Finish.
After loading the data, the Jira issues will be displayed in the sheet. Below is an example excel loaded with JIRA issues.
The headers have a color scheme which identifies read-only versus editable fields.
- Dark Gray - Read only
- Light Gray - Editable
You can easily manage your Jira issues after loading it in Excel. Update issues in bulk or create new issues using previous Jira data.
Note that editable fields are indicated by a light gray header. Refer to the heading color schemes mentioned previously.
Updating Jira issues
- Load the Jira data to be updated.
In order to modify specific fields, select the desired fields upon configuring JIRA fields for import. - Modify the fields of the Jira issue you want to update.
- Use check to view the cells that have been changed. Modified data will have a yellow background.
- After double checking, click Upload Data.
- A Result dialog will be displayed to show the summary of the operation (including whatever errors occurred upon upload).
Creating new Jira issues
- Prepare an Excel sheet with following table headings:
- Required: Key, Project Key, Issue Type, Summary
- Further required fields depend on your project configuration
- Optional: Requirement Path - to assign the new issue to a new or existing path in R4J.
- Further fields as of your project need
- Required: Key, Project Key, Issue Type, Summary
- Fill the table with the Jira data for the new issues to be created.
- Leave the key blank when creating new issues.
- Project key is required to identify in which project the new issues will be created.
- Summary and Issue Type are mandatory system fields in Jira.
- If a required field is not provided on data upload, it will be presented as an error in the Results dialog log after upload.
- Click Upload Data.
- A Result dialog will be displayed to show the summary of the operation.
- To create columns with the required and optional fields, you can use Load Data and configure Jira fields as selected fields. Required fields already selected.
- Issue Links to new Jira issues can be setup by using the Excel line number of the new Jira issue, the used link relation must be valid:
| 1 | Key | Project Key | Issue Type | Summary | Issue Links | Requirement Path |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | SC | Functional Requirement | New functional requirement | specified by:3 | SandCastle Project/Component Requirements | |
| 3 | SC | System Requirement | New system requirement | specifies:2 | SandCastle Project/System Requirements |
Setup a Parent-Child relation
- Include the Requirement Path into the excel sheet
- For the child item: Repeat the path of the parent item, add the issue ID number as path element (/ID-123)
This works also for new children items.
An valid example
Key | Project Key | Issue Type | Summary | Requirement Path |
|---|---|---|---|---|
SC-20 | SC | Functional Requirement | Existing Functional Requirement of SandCastle (SC) project | Sand Castle Project/Component Requirements |
SC-21 | SC | Functional Requirement | Existing requirement, add as child requirement to SC-20 | Sand Castle Project/Component Requirements/SC-20 |
SC | Functional Requirement | New requirement, add as child requirement for SC-21 (nested) | Sand Castle Project/Component Requirements/SC-21 |
The parent item must already exist in Jira.
Add values to multi-selection fields
You can assign different values to fields like Labels, Issue Links or version fields when you split the values by new lines. Example:
Key | Project Key | Issue Type | Summary | Labels | Issue Links | Fix Versions |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
SC-25 | SC | Functional Requirement | Add Labels and Versions | important | trace to:SC-15 trace from:SC-21 | 1.0 |
Optional Settings
Show changed values as excel comments
When this option is set, performing check on the changes of the Jira data will be put in the comments. Difference between the Jira data and the current excel data will be displayed on the comments.
Show elapsed time
This optional setting will display the elapsed time of each operation.
- When loading Jira data, a dialog box will appear displaying the elapsed time of the whole operation.
- When uploading Jira data, the elapsed time will be displayed at the bottom of the result dialog.
Show issue key column as hyperlink
This option will display the issue key column as hyperlink. This will provide easy access to the actual Jira issue in the server.
Limitations and Known Issues
- Folder descriptions in the Requirement tree are not supported.
- Comments are not supported.
- Attachments not supported
- OSX is not supported by the MS Excel Plugin.
There is currently no support for OSX planned by Microsoft.
- Unresolved resolution field is shown as empty field as Jira does not store a value for this.
- Workflow state can´t be changed as Jira only allow state changes via transactions.