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Excel Template Based Export
The Excel template based export enables R4J users to export requirements into a custom Excel template. A template is an Excel file containing placeholders for fields in Jira issues. The export process iterates over a set of Jira issues and inserts rows with the values of the fields of the issues in Excel as indicated by the placeholders.
Export is available in the R4J Tree View and Coverage View. You first select a folder or issue, then in the R4J menu you select Export > Export Template. Finally you choose a template from the list of available templates. The Excel file is generated and can then be saved locally. The generated file contains a log of any errors.
Excel templates can only be uploaded to Jira by an R4J administrator - see Configuring Custom Export Templates.
Excel template file format
The template file can contain any Excel content as well as certain placeholders. The exported file is identical to the template, except that the placeholders are replaced with the values of fields in the Jira issue result set. When the export process encounters a row containing expressions of the form [[name]] in one or more columns, where “name” is the name of a Jira issue field, it replaces that row with the values of the named fields of the first issue in the result set. It then inserts new rows after this row, one row for each of the remaining issues in the result set.
Examples of templates
Typically, a template file contains a header row with names for each of the Jira issue fields to be exported in columns. The next row contains placeholders for those fields in corresponding columns. Above and below these two rows the template can contain anything. For example, it could contain an explanation of the information being presented in the file.
Here is a simple example of an Excel template (basic_template.xlsx):
Requirement ID | Status | Summary |
[[key]] | [[status]] | [[summary]] |
If there are three issues in the result set, the exported file contains four rows, the first as seen above, and three after that for the issues with columns containing the values of the fields key, status and summary.
More than one placeholder may appear in a column and literal text can be included for purposes such as formatting. In the following example, instead of having the key and summary appear in different columns, as above, we put the values into a column together, separated by a colon and space:
Requirement | Status |
[[key]]: [[summary]] | [[status]] |
Additionally, the special placeholders [[$header]] and [[$requirementsPathSplitted]]may be used. The first appears in the header row and the second appears in the same column of the next row. Here is an example of such a template (template_requirementspathsplitted.xlsx):
Requirement ID | Status | Summary | [[$header]] |
[[key]] | [[status]] | [[summary]] | [[$requirementsPathSplitted]] |
When the export process encounters rows containing these expressions it splits the folder path into its elements and inserts columns for each element. The header for the first element of the path is the name of the project, and the headers of the remaining elements are “Level 1”, “Level 2” and so on. The following rows contains the values of the elements of the path for each issue in the corresponding column.
Here are examples of Excel templates using the new context items and properties:
Tree: v4.18
Coverage: v4.18
Baseline: v4.19
Context Items and properties
See documentation here.
Limitations
Only single sheet Excel templates are supported.
Exporting attachments is not supported.
Export is only available from the R4J Tree View and Coverage View, not from the standard Jira search results in the issue navigator. (This means you cannot determine the exported result set using JQL or saved queries.)