Managing sheets

Creating and deleting sheets

In every Project in Jira there is at least one Sheet, which by default shows all Work items of the Project. You can change this Sheet and you can create as many more Sheets as you like. Sheets are used for all sorts of purposes, such as project, portfolio, and asset management, roadmap prioritisation, backlog maintenance, sprint planning, requests triage, task tracking, managing time sheets, etc. Whatever it is you do in Jira today, you might be able to do it quicker in a Sheet. Depending on the use case you will want to set up multiple Sheets with different sheet scopes, table columns, sorting etc.

Creating new sheets

To create a new Sheet, open the Sheets menu by clicking on the Sheets button at the upper left corner of any existing Sheet, and choose Create sheet.

Alternatively, open the More menu at the top right of any existing Sheet, choose Create.

Copying sheets

You can create a new Sheet by duplicating an existing one. Open the More menu at the top right of the Sheet you would like to copy, and choose Copy.

In the dialog that appears, choose the Project where you would like the new Sheet to be located in. v2.5.1

In the next step, you’ll probably want to enter a new title for the new Sheet. Save it by clicking the Save button at the top right.

Creating sheets from a filter v2.8.0

You can also create a new Sheet from an existing Jira Filter (opens new window) accessible to you, or from a search result saved as a new Filter. Simply create a new Sheet and when defining its scope, choose the relevant Filter.

This will tie the Sheet to the associated Filter's search query, but not to the Filter's column layout, as Jira advanced search and JXL offer different sets of columns. Add and arrange columns in your Sheet to your liking and save it by clicking the Save button at the top right.

Moving sheets

You can move a Sheet from one Project to another. Open the More menu at the top right of the Sheet you would like to move, and choose Copy.

In the dialog that appears, choose the Project where you would like the Sheet to be located in. v2.5.1

In the next step, save the Sheet in its new location by clicking the Save button at the top right. Optionally, navigate back to the origin Project and delete the old Sheet there by opening the More menu at the top right of the Sheet again and choosing Delete.

Deleting sheets

To delete a Sheet, open the More menu at the top right of the Sheet you would like to delete and choose Delete.

Editing sheets

Sheets, like Boards and Queues, are named entities that can be edited, i.e. configured. To edit a Sheet (as opposed to the Work items inside the Sheet), click the Edit icon at the top right of the Sheet you would like to change. Once you’re in the sheet editing view, you can change its title, scope, and table columns:

Sheet title

You need to edit a Sheet for this (click Edit icon at the top right of a Sheet).

Change a Sheet’s title by clicking on the title field at the upper left corner of the page, and entering a new title. Click the Save button at the top right to commit your changes.

Sheet folders v3.0.5

You need to edit a Sheet for this (click Edit icon at the top right of a Sheet).

Sheets can be organised in folders within Projects. When editing the sheet title, you can type two forward slashes // to create and nest the Sheet in a folder. For example, a title "Folder 1 // Folder 2 // Sheet A" will nest the Sheet in a folder "Folder 1", sub-folder "Folder 2", and title it "Sheet A".

Sheet description v3.1.1

You can optionally add a description to your Sheets to provide others with context, e.g. what the Sheet contains, who its audience is, how it should be used as part of your business processes, etc.

To view or add a sheet description, open the sheet details dialog by clicking the View sheet details icon on the right of the sheet title. Click the bottom section of the sheet details dialog to add or edit a description.

Sheet scope

You need to edit a Sheet for this (click Edit icon at the top right of a Sheet).

Change a Sheet’s scope using the scope composer bar above the table. Choose between JQL and Filter. In JQL mode, you can edit or enter a new query statement (Jira Query Language (opens new window)). In Filter mode, you can pick one of the Filters (opens new window) available to you in your Jira site. v2.8.0

To see the changes reflected in the table below, click the Apply button or press ⌘ Cmd ↲ Enter (macOS) or ⌃ Ctrl ↲ Enter (Windows, Linux, etc.) for a JQL query.

No worries if you are inexperienced with JQL, as the scope composer bar offers educational hints and a powerful auto-complete suggestions experience that guides you to your desired scope in no time. Click the Save button at the top right to commit your changes.

Adding columns

To add a column to the table of a Sheet, hover with the cursor over the header of a column, a More icon appears. Click it, choose Add column to the left or Add column to the right, and in the dialog that appears, choose from Fields and other work item-related data to add as a column to your table. Click the Save button when you are done. v3.4.0

Alternatively, click the Edit icon at the top right of a Sheet, hover with the cursor over the position in the table where you want to create the column (i.e. over a column border), and click the line or the Add icon that appears above the table. In the dialog that appears, choose from Fields and other work item-related data to add as a column to your table and click the Apply button when you are done. Click the Save button at the top right to commit your changes.

Pro tip

You can add columns multiple times to your table. This is helpful, for example, if you need the same column at different positions of your table, or if you need it multiple times to configure its Cell format or Cell content differently.

Notice

Keep in mind: Work types in Jira Cloud are called Issue types Jira Data Center (opens new window)
While you can add any column to any Sheet in JXL, many table cells will only be available and editable for individual Work types if you have configured Jira accordingly. You need to have the appropriate Field added to the Work type’s Screen in your Jira settings, specifically to the Edit operation Screen, or in absence of that to the Default Screen (Manage work item screens (opens new window)). The Field must also not be hidden in Field configurations. In Team-managed projects in Jira Cloud, the Field has to be added to the Work type in Project settings (Customize work item fields (opens new window)).

Removing columns

To remove a column from the table of a Sheet, hover with the cursor over the header of the relevant column, a More icon appears. Click it and choose Remove column. v3.4.0

Alternatively, click the Edit icon at the top right of a Sheet, hover with the cursor over the relevant column, and click the Remove icon that appears above the table. Click the Save button at the top right to commit your changes.

Re-arranging columns

You need to edit a Sheet for this (click Edit icon at the top right of a Sheet).

To re-arrange the order of columns in the table of a Sheet, click the handle bar above the relevant column header cell, drag it horizontally to the desired new position, and drop it there. Click the Save button at the top right to commit your changes.

Renaming columns v1.2.5

To rename a column heading in the table of a Sheet, hover with the cursor over the header of the relevant column, a More icon appears. Click it, choose Rename heading, and in the dialog that opens type in your new column heading. Click the Save button to commit your changes.

Alternatively, edit a sheet (click the Edit icon at the top right of a Sheet), hover with the cursor over the header of the relevant column, an Edit column icon appears. Click it and in the dialog that opens type in your new column heading. Apply the change and click the Save button at the top right to commit your changes.

Header format v3.0.1

To format a column header in the table of a Sheet, hover with the cursor over the header of the relevant column, a More icon appears. Click it, choose Format header, and in the dialog that opens choose a colour for both foreground and background of the column header. Click the Save button to commit your changes.

Alternatively, edit a sheet (click the Edit icon at the top right of a Sheet), hover with the cursor over the header of the relevant column, an Edit column icon appears. Click it and in the dialog that opens choose a colour for both foreground and background of the column header. Apply the change and click the Save button at the top right to commit your changes.

Cell format

For some columns you can choose between different Cell formats. For example, in time tracking columns, some History columns and Smart columns, you can configure how time values are displayed.

To do so, hover with the cursor over the header of the relevant column, a More icon appears. Click it, choose Edit cell format, and in the dialog that opens choose a Cell format. Click the Save button to commit your changes.

Alternatively, edit a sheet (click the Edit icon at the top right of a Sheet), hover with the cursor over the header of the relevant column, an Edit column icon appears. Click it and in the dialog that opens choose a Cell format. Apply the change and click the Save button at the top right to commit your changes.

Cell content

For some columns you can choose between different Cell content. For example, in Work item links Smart columns you can configure which Work item link descriptions to include. v3.0.1

And in History columns that surface historical work item-related data, such as Time in status or Time between statuses, there are various Cell content configuration options. v3.5.1

To configure a column's Cell content, hover with the cursor over the header of the relevant column, a More icon appears. Click it, choose Edit cell content, and in the dialog that opens choose Cell content. Click the Save button to commit your changes.

Alternatively, edit a sheet (click the Edit icon at the top right of a Sheet), hover with the cursor over the header of the relevant column, an Edit column icon appears. Click it and in the dialog that opens choose Cell content. Apply the change and click the Save button at the top right to commit your changes.

Work calendar v3.6.1

For some History columns and Smart columns you can optionally create a Work calendar to ensure that only your actual work time is taken into consideration, as opposed to 24/7 time. Examples include Time in status columns and most Time since... columns.

To configure a column's Work calendar, hover with the cursor over the header of the relevant column, a More icon appears. Click it, choose Edit cell content, in the dialog that opens expand the Work calendar section if it's collapsed, and make your adjustments. Click the Save button to commit your changes.

Alternatively, edit a sheet (click the Edit icon at the top right of a Sheet), hover with the cursor over the header of the relevant column, an Edit column icon appears. Click it, in the dialog that opens expand the Work calendar section if it's collapsed, and make your adjustments. Apply the changes and click the Save button at the top right to commit your changes.

The following configuration options can be set in a Work calendar.

Work days

Choose which weekdays you'd like the measurement to entail. Click on a day to toggle inclusion.

Work time

• From work hour - Set a time when work starts
• To work hour - Set a time when work ends

Time zone

If Work days or Work time differ from the default 24/7 calendar, a time zone has to be specified.

Keep in mind

If you are using a Cell format that displays days, weeks, months, or years, your Work days and Work time settings here determine how long a week and a day are for the purpose of the measurement.

Non-work dates

We are working on enabling you to additionally exclude specific dates once or annually from measurement, e.g. to account for holidays or other dates where your team is off work. Stay tuned or contact us (opens new window) if that's something you're interested in.

Non-work time

We may enable additionally excluding specific times daily from measurement, e.g. to account for breaks. Contact us (opens new window) if that's something you're interested in.

Date and time format

Date and datetime Fields' values are formatted according to each individual User's locale preference in Jira. Unfortunately, Atlassian has tied the locale to the language preference, so the only way to affect this is by setting your Language.

In Jira Cloud, this personal setting can be found here in the Account preferences (opens new window) of the Atlassian account profile.

In Jira Data Center, this personal setting can be found by clicking on your user avatar User profile in the Jira navigation header bar, choosing Profile, and scrolling down to Preferences.

Not all locales' formats are supported. For the ones not currently supported, JXL falls back to English (US).

Stay tuned

We are working on making it possible to set date and datetime Fields' format for all Users to the format globally configured in the System section of Jira settings.

Making columns read-only v1.3.0

To make cells of a column (that normally would be editable) read-only in a Sheet, hover with the cursor over the header of the relevant column, a More icon appears. Click it, choose Set editability, and in the dialog that opens activate the Read-only column switch. Click the Save button to commit your changes.

Alternatively, edit a sheet (click the Edit icon at the top right of a Sheet), hover with the cursor over the header of the relevant column, an Edit column icon appears. Click it and in the dialog that opens activate the Read-only column switch. Apply the change and click the Save button at the top right to commit your changes.

Adapting sheets v1.2.1

You can use any Sheet as a layout Sheet to open it with an adapted scope and title using URL parameters. This is helpful for example when you need to integrate Sheets into processes with dynamically changing scopes of Work items and when you need to programmatically open these Sheets.

{SHEET-URL}?jql={ADAPTED-JQL-QUERY}&title={ADAPTED-TITLE}

Replace {SHEET-URL} with the URL of the Sheet you would like to use as the layout Sheet for the adapted Sheet. Any ordinary Sheet can be used as a layout Sheet and you can create various Sheets with different table column layouts for that purpose.

Replace {ADAPTED-JQL-QUERY} with a JQL statement (Jira Query Language (opens new window)) and, optionally, {ADAPTED-TITLE} with a title for your adapted Sheet. Both parameters need to be URL-encoded (percent-encoded). Example:

{SHEET-URL}?jql=project%20%3D%20"ABC"&title=My%20adapted%20sheet

Exporting sheets

To export a Sheet to a XLSX, CSV or TSV file, open the More menu at the upper right corner of the Sheet, and choose Export. In the dialog that opens, select a file format and click the Export button.

You can activate the Ignore view preferences and features checkbox in the dialog to ensure all Work items in the sheet scope will be exported (disregarding potentially currently active column filtering and sheet search), in the original sort order of the sheet scope (disregarding potentially currently active column sorting).

Sharing sheets v2.4.0

To invite others to work in a Sheet with you, click the Share and embed icon at the top right of the Sheet you would like to share. In the dialog that opens click Copy link, then paste the copied address into a message and send it to your recipients.

If you'd like to share a link to the Sheet in a particular state of features and view preferences, consider (creating and) choosing a View in the menu at the top of the dialog.

Options v4.1.5

If these switches are toggled off, parameters are appended to the sheet URL.

• Enable sheet editing - Switching this toggle off disables editing of the Sheet itself, regardless of otherwise relevant Permissions the recipients might have.
• Enable view preferences editing - If a View is selected, switching this toggle off disables editing of any features and view preferences that are saved in the View. Any features and view preferences that are not saved in the selected View will be editable by the recipients. v4.5.0
• Enable work item editing - Switching this toggle off disables editing of Work items in the sheet, regardless of otherwise relevant Permissions the recipients might have.

Embedding sheets

To get an embeddable address, click the Share and embed icon at the top right of the Sheet. In the dialog that opens switch to the Embed tab and click Copy link. v3.6.0

To embed a Sheet into a Confluence Cloud Page, edit the Page, add the iframe Macro (Insert the iframe macro (opens new window)), edit the Macro, and paste the embeddable address of the Sheet into the URL field.

To embed a Sheet into a Confluence Data Center or Server Page, edit the Page, add the HTML Macro (the HTML Include Macro is not supported), write an <iframe> tag (opens new window) in it, and reference the embeddable address of the Sheet as the source (How to put an iframe into Confluence (opens new window)).

Options v4.1.5

If these switches are toggled off, parameters are appended to the sheet URL.

• Enable sheet editing - Switching this toggle off disables editing of the Sheet itself, regardless of otherwise relevant Permissions the visitors might have.
• Enable view preferences editing - If a View is selected, switching this toggle off disables editing of any features and view preferences that are saved in the View. Any features and view preferences that are not saved in the selected View will be editable by the visitors. v4.5.0
• Enable work item editing - Switching this toggle off disables editing of Work items in the sheet, regardless of otherwise relevant Permissions the visitors might have.

Receiving an error in Confluence Data Center or Server?

If instead of Sheets your browser displays a blank space, "refused to connect", "can’t open", or similar error message in Confluence Data Center or Server, the security settings of your site prevent pages from being embedded in frames. This is a security measure against clickjacking introduced in Jira v7.6 and can be adjusted to exclude sheet URLs and paths using a JVM_SUPPORT_RECOMMENDED_ARGS section in the setenv file (Security headers in Jira (opens new window)).

Also ensure that connections to sheet URLs and paths are allowed on your Allowlist in Administration in the General Configuration area (Configuring the Allowlist (opens new window))

Stay tuned for more

We have planned to offer a Confluence app in the future, which will make a dedicated JXL sheet Macro available for Confluence Cloud and Data Center.

Using sheets on dashboards v4.6.0

To add a sheet to a Dashboard in Jira, navigate to Dashboards and add the Sheet gadget (Add and customize gadgets (opens new window)). Once added, set the Sheet and View you'd like to show by clicking its icon at the top right, and choosing Configure (Jira Cloud) or Edit (Jira Data Center).

1. Choose the Project in which the Sheet is located.
2. Choose the Sheet you'd like to show.
3. Optionally, choose a View you'd like to show.

Keep in mind

If a View is selected here, visitors of the gadget are not able to change any of the features and view preferences that are saved in that View.

In other words, you can use a View to lock the appearance of the Sheet in the gadget. This is helpful when you'd like to prevent Users from switching to other Views, from sorting, filtering, hiding, freezing, resizing columns, or from enabling or disabling sheet features such as Sum-ups, Grouping, Hierarchy, Structures, and Conditional formats.