Exports

Where the export buttons are

Every export contains what the screen is showing after filtering and sorting: every row of it, not just the page you are on, and never the whole site. Files are built in your browser and downloaded from there; the file itself is never uploaded. Signing an export stores its fingerprint and a few details in the app’s storage on your site; see Signed exports.

For reports that arrive by themselves every day, week or month, see Scheduled reports.

Change history: CSV columns

The raw columns are what you need when values are ambiguous: two statuses with the same name, a user’s account ID behind a display name, an option ID behind a label.

Change history: Excel columns

The Excel workbook has the same first twelve columns and leaves out the two raw columns. The offset is written the same way, for example UTC+01:00. It adds formatting a spreadsheet can use:

• Header row in bold, frozen, with an autofilter over the data.
• Old values shaded and struck through, new values shaded, creation rows shaded in their own colour.
• Column widths set so keys, dates and values are readable without resizing.
• Two fields with the same display name are disambiguated as Story Points (customfield_10016).

Excel and Google Sheets keep the header row in view as you scroll. Apple Numbers doesn’t read a spreadsheet’s frozen row as a header, so in Numbers choose Table → Header Rows → 1 once to keep it in view.

The Settings sheet

Every change-history workbook has a second sheet named Settings. From the Changes tab it holds:

That sheet is what makes an export usable as evidence months later: it records exactly which query produced the file and when. From a single work item’s history, the sheet names the work item and the time zone instead of a JQL query.

UTC and local time

Every row carries both. The UTC column is the authoritative instant; the local column is the same instant in the exporting user’s time zone, with the offset in its own column so a reader can check it. Non-hour offsets such as +05:30 and +05:45 are handled, and the offset shown is the one in force on that date, so rows either side of a daylight-saving change show different offsets.

Two people in different countries exporting the same report get identical UTC columns and different local columns. Compare on UTC.

Delimiters and encoding

On the Changes tab and a work item’s history, the CSV delimiter can be set to Comma, Semicolon or Tab before you export. Semicolon is the usual choice for European Excel installations. Every other CSV the app writes uses commas.

• CSV files are UTF-8 with a byte-order mark, so Excel detects the encoding and accents survive.
• Line endings are CRLF.
• Cells that begin with =, +, -, @, a tab or a carriage return are prefixed with an apostrophe, so a value cannot be executed as a spreadsheet formula.

Size limits and very large exports

On the Changes tab and a work item’s history, every format is built in chunks of 5,000 rows, with a pause between chunks so the tab keeps responding. From 5,000 rows upwards you see Building… n of m rows and a Cancel button; cancelling downloads nothing. After the download, the app shows the row count and the file size in megabytes.

For a very large export:

• Split by month or by project and export several files. Smaller files open faster and are easier to review.
• Prefer CSV over Excel for the biggest files. It is smaller, builds faster and loads faster in analysis tools.
• Filter before exporting. Excluding noisy fields such as Rank often halves the row count.
• If the browser tab runs out of memory, narrow the date range rather than raising the work item limit.

Excel files are compressed when the browser supports it. If it does not, the file is written uncompressed, which is larger but opens in every spreadsheet application.

Change history as PDF

Export PDF on the Changes tab and on a work item’s history writes a readable extract of the change history.

• A4 landscape, Helvetica, a paginated table.
• Columns: Date (UTC), Date (local), Work item, Summary, Changed by, Field, From, To. Times are written as YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS.
• The title is Work item history, or OPS-123 history for one work item. The subtitle is the JQL, and the footer gives the row count, when it was exported and the time zone.
• The raw values and account IDs are left out. CSV and Excel carry the full record.

A PDF is meant to be read, so the app checks before building a big one. Above 5,000 rows it explains that CSV or Excel handles that size far better, and above 20,000 rows it estimates the page count. Either way the button becomes Export PDF anyway, and a second press builds it.

Reports tab exports

The Reports tab exports the report on screen: Time in value, Change counts or Status over time.

The exports carry every row, including the ones beyond what the screen shows. The chart itself is not drawn in the PDF; the PDF carries the numbers behind it.

Use PDF when the file is going to a reviewer or into an evidence pack, and CSV or Excel when someone will work with the numbers.

Deleted items and scanner exports

The Deleted items export has its own columns: Deleted (UTC), Deleted (local), Work item, Summary, Project, Parent (for a subtask), Type, Status, Deleted by (the person’s name), Deleted by (account id), Restored as, Custom fields captured, and Capture quality (Full snapshot or Partial (delete event only)).

The Security scanner export starts with a short header block recording the query, the generation time, whether values are masked, and the number of findings, then one row per finding, up to 1,000. See Security scanner before exporting unmasked values.

Who can export

The Export (CSV, XLSX, PDF) permission on the admin page controls every download button in the app: the Changes tab, a work item’s history, the Reports tab (including the chart’s SVG and PNG), Deleted items, the Security scanner and the revert dry run. Someone without it can still run and read the reports; they just get no download buttons. Signing an export and saving a scheduled report are also refused on the server without it. See Admin settings.

Limitations

• Exports contain the rows the screen is showing. If the load was truncated at your work item limit, the export is truncated in the same way, and the summary line tells you.
• There is no emailed export and no API to pull exports from outside Jira. Scheduled reports are delivered inside Jira instead: the file is attached to a work item you choose, with a comment summarising it. See Scheduled reports.
• PDF is a readable extract. Above 5,000 rows the app asks you to confirm before building one.
• Excel exports carry formatting, not formulas or pivot tables.
• The scanner CSV holds at most 1,000 findings, the same as the table.
• Cell values over 32,767 characters are truncated, because that is Excel’s limit.