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You're reading from JIRA 7 Essentials - Fourth Edition

Product typeBook

Published inNov 2016

Reading LevelBeginner

PublisherPackt

ISBN-139781786462510

Edition4th Edition

Languages

Java

Tools

JIRA

Concepts

Process Management

Author (1)

Patrick Li

Chapter 10. Searching, Reporting, and Analysis

From Chapter 2, Using JIRA for Business Projects, to Chapter 6, Screen Management, we looked at how JIRA can be used as an information system to gather data from users. In Chapter 7, Workflow and Business Process, and Chapter 8, E-mails and Notifications, we discussed some of the features that JIRA provides to add value to the gathered data through workflows and notifications. In this chapter, we will look at the other half of the equation: getting the data out and presenting it as useful information to the users.

By the end of this chapter, you will have learned the following:

Utilizing the search interface in JIRA
Learning the different search options available in JIRA
Getting to know about filters and how you can share search results with other users
Generating reports in JIRA
Sharing information with dashboards and gadgets

Search interface and options in JIRA

As an information system, JIRA comes fully loaded with features and options to search for data. JIRA comes with three search options:

Quick/text search: This allows you to search for issues quickly through simple text-based search queries
Basic/simple search: This lets you specify issue field criteria via intuitive UI controls
Advanced search: This lets you construct powerful search queries with JIRA's own search language, JIRA Query Language (JQL)

However, before we start looking into the in-depth details of all the search options JIRA provides, let's first take a look at the main search interface that you will be using in JIRA while performing your searches.

Issue navigator

The issue navigator is the primary interface where you will be performing all of your searches in JIRA. You can access the issue navigator by clicking on the Issues menu in the top menu bar and then selecting Search for issues.

The issue navigator is divided into several sections. The first section is where you will specify all of your search criteria, such as the project you want to search in and the issue type you are interested in. The second section shows the search results brought back. The third section includes the operations that you can perform on the search results, such as exporting them in a different format. The fourth and last section lists a number of useful, pre-configured, and user-created filters.

When you access the issue navigator for the first time, you will be in the basic search (we will discuss the different search options in more detail later in this chapter). If you previously visited the issue navigator and chose to use a different search option,...

Basic search

This is also known as simple search. Basic search allows you to construct your search criteria with a simple-to-use interface. The basic search interface lets you select the fields you want to search with, such as issue status, and specify the values for these fields. As shown in the following screenshot, we are searching for issues in the Demonstration Project, and with the status as Open.

With basic search, JIRA will prompt you for the possible search values for the selected field. This is very handy for fields such as status and select list-based custom fields, so you do not have to remember all the possible options. For example, for the status field, JIRA will list all the available statuses, as shown in the following screenshot:

While working with the basic search interface, JIRA will have the default fields of project, issue type, status, and assignee visible. You can add additional fields to the search by clicking on the More button and then selecting the field you want...

Advanced search with JQL

Basic search is useful and will fulfill most of the users' search needs. However, there are still some limitations. One such limitation is that basic search allows you to perform searches based on inclusive logic but not exclusive logic. For example, if you need to search for issues in all but one project, with basic search, you will have to select every project except for the one to be excluded, since the basic search interface does not let you specify exclusions, and this is where advanced search comes in.

With advanced search, instead of using a field selection-based interface as in basic search, you will be using what is known as the JIRA Query Language (JQL). JQL is a custom query language developed by Atlassian. If you are familiar with the Structured Query Language (SQL), you will notice that it has a similar syntax; however, JQL is not the same as SQL.

One of the most notable differences between JQL and SQL is that JQL does not start with a select statement...

Quick search

JIRA provides a quick search functionality, which allows you to perform quick simple searches based on the text contained in the issue's summary, description, or comments. This allows you to perform quick text-based searches on all issues in JIRA.

The quick search function has several additional features to let you perform more specialized searches with minimal typing, through smart querying. JIRA has a list of built-in queries, which you can use as your quick search terms to pull up issues with a specific issue type and/or status. Some useful queries are included in the following table (you can find the full quick search reference at https://confluence.atlassian.com/jiracoreserver072/quick-searching-829092656.html:)

Working with search results

You have seen how you can execute searches in JIRA. With the exception of using the issue key smart query, which will take you directly to the target issue, all other search results will be shown in the issue navigator.

The issue navigator is capable of more than letting you run searches and presenting you with the results; it also has other features which allow you to:

Display search results in different view options
Export search results into different formats
Select the columns you want to see for the issues in the results
Share your search results with other people
Create and manage filters

Switching result views

The issue navigator can display your search results in two different views. The default view is Detail View, where issues from results are listed on the left-hand side, and the currently selected issue's details are displayed on the right. This view allows you to view the issue's contents on the same page as the search result.

The second view is List View...

Filters

After you have run a search query, sometimes it will be useful to save the query for later use. For example, you may have created a query to list all the open bugs and new features in a project that are to be completed by a certain date in several projects so you can keep an eye on their progress. Instead of recreating this search query every time you want to check up on the statuses, you can save the query as a filter, which can be reused at a later stage. You can think of filters as named search queries that can be reused.

Other than being able to quickly pull up a report without having to recreate the queries, saving search queries as filters provides you with other benefits, including the following:

Share saved filters with other users
Use the filters as a source of data to generate reports
Use the filters for agile boards (see Chapter 3, Using JIRA for Agile Projects)
Display results on a dashboard as a gadget
Subscribe to the search queries to have results e-mailed to you automatically...

Reports

Apart from JQL and filters, JIRA also provides specialized reports to help you get a better understanding of the statistics for your projects, issues, users, and more. Most reports in JIRA are designed to report on issues from a specific project; however, there are some reports that can be used globally across multiple projects, with filters.

Generating a report

All JIRA reports are accessed from the Browse Project page of a specific project, regardless of whether the report is project-specific or global. The difference between the two types of reports is that a global report will let you choose a filter as a source of data, while a project-specific report will have its source of data predetermined based on the project you are in.

When generating a report, you will often need to supply several configuration options. For example, you may have to select a filter, which will provide the data for the report, or select a field to report on. The configuration options vary from report to report...

Dashboards

The dashboard is the first page you see when you access JIRA. Dashboards host mini-applications known as gadgets, which provide various data and information from your JIRA instance. The dashboard acts as a portal, which provides users with a quick one-page view of information that is relevant or of interest to them.

Managing dashboards

When you first install JIRA, the default dashboard you see is called the system dashboard, and it is pre-configured to show some useful information, such as all issues that are assigned to you:

Since everyone shares the system dashboard, you as a normal user cannot make changes to it, but you can create your own dashboards. Each dashboard's functions are configured independently.
Bring down the drop-down menu from Dashboards.
Select the Manage Dashboards option. This will bring you to the Manage Dashboards page, as shown in the following screenshot:

From this page, you can edit and maintain dashboards created by you, search dashboards created and shared...

Gadgets

Gadgets are like mini-applications that live on a dashboard in JIRA. They are similar to widgets in most of the smart phones we have today or portlets in most portal applications. Each gadget has its own unique interface and behavior. For example, the Pie Chart gadget displays data in a pie chart, while the Assigned to Me gadget lists all the unresolved issues that are assigned to the current user in a table.

To discuss the in-depth details of gadgets and their underlying technology (OpenSocial) is beyond the scope of this book, but there is much information on this topic available on the Internet, if you are interested in creating your own gadgets to use with JIRA. A good place to start will be the Atlassian documentation at https://developer.atlassian.com/x/IgA3.

Placing a gadget on the dashboard

All gadgets are listed in the Gadget Directory. JIRA comes with a number of useful gadgets, such as the Assigned to Me gadget that you see on the System Dashboard. The following screenshot...

The HR project

In our previous chapters and exercises, we built and customized a JIRA project to collect data from users. What we need to do now is process and present this data back to the users. The goal we are trying to achieve in this exercise is to set up a dashboard for our HR team, which will have useful information such as statistics and issue listings, which can help our team members to better organize themselves to provide better services to other departments.

Setting up filters

The first step is to create a useful filter that can be shared with the other members of the team and that also acts as a source of data to feed our gadgets. We will use the advanced search to construct our search:

Browse to the Issue Navigator page.
Click on the Advanced link to switch to advanced search with JQL.
Type the project = HR and issuetype in ("New Employee", Termination) and resolution is empty order by priority code in the JQL search query.
Click on the Search button to execute the search.
Click on...

Summary

We covered how users can search and report on the data they have put into JIRA, which is an essential component for any information system. JIRA provides a robust search facility by offering many different search options to users, including quick, simple, and advanced searches. You can save and name your searches by creating filters that can be rerun at later stages to save you from recreating the same search again.

JIRA also allows you to create configurable reports on projects or results brought back from search filters. Information can be shared with others through a dashboard, which acts as a portal for users to quickly get a glance of the data kept in JIRA.

In the next chapter, we will look at the other application in the JIRA family, JIRA Service Desk, which helps to change JIRA into a fully functional service desk with powerful features, such as the customer portal and SLA management.

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Author (1)

Patrick Li

Patrick Li is the cofounder of AppFusions and works as a senior engineer there, specializing in integration solutions with many enterprise applications and platforms, including IBM Connections, Jive, Google Apps, and more. He has worked in the Atlassian ecosystem for over 10 years, developing products and solutions for the Atlassian platform and providing expert consulting services. He has authored many books and video courses covering Jira. He has extensive experience in designing and deploying Atlassian solutions from the ground up and customizing existing deployments for clients across verticals such as healthcare, software engineering, financial services, and government agencies.
Read more about Patrick Li

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Smart query	Result
Issue key (for example, `HD-12`)	Takes you directly to the issue with the specified issue key.
Project key (for example, `HD`)	Displays all the issues in the project specified by the key in the Issue Navigator page.
`my` or `my open bugs`	...