How to update Jira Service Desk from Excel

The CData Excel Add-In for Jira Service Desk enables you to edit and save Jira Service Desk data directly from Excel. This article explains how to transfer data from Excel to Jira Service Desk. This technique is useful if you want to work on Jira Service Desk data in Excel and update changes, or if you have a whole spreadsheet you want to import into Jira Service Desk. In this example, you will use the Requests table; however, the same process will work for any table that can be retrieved by the CData Excel Add-In.

Establish a Connection

If you have not already done so, create a new Jira Service Desk connection by clicking From Jira Service Desk on the ribbon.

You can establish a connection to any Jira Service Desk Cloud account or Server instance.

Connecting with a Cloud Account

To connect to a Cloud account, you'll first need to retrieve an APIToken. To generate one, log in to your Atlassian account and navigate to API tokens > Create API token. The generated token will be displayed.

Supply the following to connect to data:

• User: Set this to the username of the authenticating user.
• APIToken: Set this to the API token found previously.

Connecting with a Service Account

To authenticate with a service account, you will need to supply the following connection properties:

• User: Set this to the username of the authenticating user.
• Password: Set this to the password of the authenticating user.
• URL: Set this to the URL associated with your JIRA Service Desk endpoint. For example, https://yoursitename.atlassian.net.

Note: Password has been deprecated for connecting to a Cloud Account and is now used only to connect to a Server Instance.

Accessing Custom Fields

By default, the connector only surfaces system fields. To access the custom fields for Issues, set IncludeCustomFields.

Retrieve Data from Jira Service Desk

To insert data into Jira Service Desk, you will first need to retrieve data from the Jira Service Desk table you want to add to. This links the Excel spreadsheet to the Jira Service Desk table selected: After you retrieve data, any changes you make to the data are highlighted in red.

1. Click the From Jira Service Desk button on the CData ribbon. The Data Selection wizard is displayed.
2. In the Table or View menu, select the Requests table.
3. In the Maximum Rows menu, select the number of rows you want to retrieve. If you want to insert rows, you need to retrieve only one row. The Query box will then display the SQL query that corresponds to your request.
4. In the Sheet Name box, enter the name for the sheet that will be populated. By default the add-in will create a new sheet with the name of the table.

Insert Rows to Jira Service Desk

After retrieving data, you can add data from an existing spreadsheet in Excel.

1. In a cell after the last row, enter a formula referencing the corresponding cell from the other spreadsheet; for example, =MyRequestsSheetInExcel!A1.
2. After using a formula to reference the cells you want to add to Jira Service Desk, select the cells that you are inserting data into and drag the formula down as far as needed. The referenced values you want to add will be displayed on the Requests sheet.
3. Highlight the rows you want to insert and click the Update Rows button.

As each row is inserted, the Id value will appear in the Id column and the row's text will change to black, indicating that the record has been inserted.