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.

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 (make sure the desired fields are selected for import).

• 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.

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. 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.

Create links between new issues or between new and existing issues

Links between new Jira issues are created by using the Excel row numbers of the issues in the Issue Links column. To create links between new Jira issues and existing issues, you use the issue key of the existing issue instead of a row number. (If the existing issue is also in the worksheet, you can use either the row number or the issue key.) The following example shows how to create links of type “specified by” and “specifies” between two new issues and to create a link of type “test” between a third new issue and an existing issue. It is not required to define both ends of the relation, Jira will take care for the second part:

Create parent-child relationships

The Requirement Path field is used to create parent-child relationships. The path of the child issue is that of the parent issue, plus the issue key of the parent. For example, if the parent path is “Sand Castle Project/Component Requirements” and the key of the intended parent is “SC-20”, then the path of the child is specified as “Sand Castle Project/Component Requirements/SC-20”. This method also works for new children.

The following example shows how the existing issue SC-21 is added as a child of SC-20 and how a new issue is added as child of SC-21:

Create new predefined field values

Fields such as Fix Versions contain values that are predefined by users with the appropriate project permission, e.g. the project administrators. If you have the permission to create the predefined values of a given field, and you enter a new value for the field in Excel, it will be added as a new predefined value to the project. If you do not have the project permission, the update is refused and reported as an error in the results summary.

Add values to multi-selection fields

Multiple values can be created in fields such as Labels by placing the values on new lines. The following example shows how to do this for the fields Labels, Issue Links and Fix Versions:

Create comments

New comments can be created by entering a value in the column Comments.