Employees, divisions and projects all increase in lockstep as your organization expands. As the number of your cross-functional teams grows, ensuring effective communication and data accuracy becomes more and more challenging. Hence, to achieve continuous improvement, deploying a robust Project Management Platform is essential. This can help you automate processes and boost efficiency.
One of the effective ways to store and access data is to use Microsoft Excel. It provides a seamless way to not only store data but also to carry out an efficient analysis. Although Microsoft Excel can empower your analysis, it doesn’t house the must-have features of Project Management tools. Jira is one such platform that can help you streamline Project Management and development with its intuitive features. Hence, Excel to Jira import makes complete sense. Jira houses a transparent, easy to use and modern UI with a plethora of collaborations tools that help you plan, keep track and achieve success in your Agile Projects.
In this article, you’ll learn about Jira and Microsoft Excel in depth. This article will also provide you with a step-by-step guide to export Excel to Jira with ease!
Table of Contents
Prerequisites
- An Active Jira Licence.
- Microsoft Excel Licence.
- Working knowledge of Microsoft Excel.
- Working knowledge of Jira.
Introduction to JIRA
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JIRA is a popular Project Management tool that is used to track bugs, issues, and the progress of various tasks associated with an organization’s Software and Applications development. JIRA has a powerful and feature-rich Dashboard that makes tracking these tasks related to bugs and issues a breeze. It comes in a number of packages/varients, including JIRA Core, Software, and a Service Desk, each of which focuses on simplifying tasks such as Generic and Agile Project Management.
Organizations that use JIRA for Software Management frequently require data to be imported/exported to and from On-premises Databases & Tools for a variety of use cases, ranging from evaluating Engineering Performance to predicting delays and problems in project outcomes.
Key Features of Jira
- Real-time: JIRA sends emails in real-time with information about the project or task updates.
- Security: JIRA is a safe Bug-Tracking system. It supports security-based restrictions that limit the number of people or teams who can work on a given bug.
- Solid Integration: JIRA integrates well with a wide range of tools, including Salesforce, GitHub, Tempo, EasyBI, and others, making it extremely simple for IT and Software Teams to collaborate and resolve issues quickly.
- Agile Development: JIRA is fundamentally based on the Agile Development Model and prompts users to specify whether the project is Scrum or Kanban when a new project is created.
Introduction to Microsoft Excel
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Microsoft Excel has been around since 1984 when it was first released for the Apple Mac. When Microsoft released its first Computer & Operating System in 1987, it was re-engineered for a new platform and dubbed Microsoft Excel 2.0. Microsoft Excel was created to compete with VisiCalc, a spreadsheet with 5 columns and 20 rows that, while primitive by today’s standards, was revolutionary in the 1970s.
Microsoft Excel is a Spreadsheet Application that is included in the Microsoft Office Suite. It works with Windows, Mac OS, Android, and iOS. It makes it easier to create text and numeric grids, calculate formulas, use graphing tools, build pivot tables and use VBA Macro Programming language (Visual Basic for Applications).
Key Features of Microsoft Excel
- Paste Special: When copying data from one cell to another, the user can also copy Formatting, Value, Formula, Comments, and other items, as well as their combinations, based on their needs.
- Add Multiple Rows: At any time, Microsoft Excel users can add multiple rows and columns to their Spreadsheets.
- Flash Fill: While copying data, Microsoft Excel makes suggestions for specific changes.
- Conditional Formatting: This feature highlights patterns in your data as they appear in your Spreadsheet.
- Pivot Tables: These can be used to sort, count, total, or average data from a single large spreadsheet and display it in a new table in any way the user wants.
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Steps for Integrating Microsoft Excel to Jira
Here are the simple steps to start exporting data from Microsoft Excel to Jira:
Step 1: Create a Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet
To import Jira issues from Excel, you must first properly format the Microsoft Excel file in order to get started with the export process of Microsoft Excel to Jira.
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There are a few things to keep in mind while preparing your spreadsheet on Microsoft Excel:
- The Type of Issues that get imported is determined by the project configuration in which you want to import tasks.
- All column names in your Microsoft Excel file represent a Jira Field Name. Hence, even the column, Issue Type represents a Jira Field.
- You must ensure that the Epic Name for each Epic matches exactly with the Epic Link column for every task.
- The title of your Jira Issue/Task should appear in the Summary Column.
- Check your configuration to see what your Priority names are before importing Priority column data
- The Assignee Column’s content is will depend on your user naming convention.
- Adding the description field is optional.
Step 2: Save Microsoft Excel File/s as CSV
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Once you’ve created your Spreadsheet by following the points mentioned above, you need to save your file containing the JIRA data as a CSV UTF-8 File. It’s essential to choose the UTF-8 Character Encoding to help avoid any data issues later on, especially if you’re working with a language other than English.
With your file now saved as a CSV file, you can now open it on any notepad application, such as Notepad++. This is how the Jira Importer will perceive your file when you import it:
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It’s worth noting that commas are still required in columns with no data.
Step 3: Using the CSV Importer to Load Data from Excel to Jira
When managing your data for Jira bulk upload from Excel, you will frequently need to create a large number of tasks. Creating them one at a time will take a long time and effort, and it is not necessary. If you learn how to use a CSV importer, it won’t take long to create/update hundreds or thousands of tasks hence making exporting data from Excel to Jira simple
Now, with your file ready, all you need to do is use the CSV Importer in Jira to import your data. You can do this by going to the Jira Administration > System > External System Import > Export.
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This is how you seamlessly integrate Microsoft Excel to Jira and start importing your data with ease!
Conclusion
This article provided you with a step-by-step guide to help you connect Microsoft Excel to Jira with ease. It also provided you with an in-depth understanding of both platforms, along with a detailed list of features these platforms have in store for you.
You might wish to take your business growth a step further after exporting your data from Microsoft Excel to Jira by employing Data Analytics techniques. This will necessitate the deployment of different complex ETL techniques to first transfer data from Microsoft Excel to Jira and then to a Data Warehouse.
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Share your experience of exporting data from Microsoft Excel to Jira in the comments section below!
Davor is a data analyst at heart with a passion for data, software architecture, and writing technical content. He has experience writing more than 100 articles on data integration and infrastructure.