Best Practices

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Reusing existing saved filters

When you want to re-use an existing saved filter as trigger, use one of the following expressions in the trigger's JQL:

filter = 10100					## executes the saved filter with the ID = 10100
filter = "My important tasks"	## executes the saved filter with the given name

Tip: using the first (ID-based) syntax is safer, because the second (name-based) one will break if someone renames the saved filter.

Columns

When using the Excel templates in your automation action that rely on dynamic column configuration, like issue-navigator.xlsx or issue-navigator-with-comments.xlsx, there is an additional powerful feature. Those templates will intelligently find and use the column configuration of the saved filter!

In other words, just enter "filter = 10100" for the trigger, then the trigger will run the corresponding query and the action will export the result using the corresponding column configuration. This makes reusing saved filters a breeze.

Sorting

If you use a saved filter with the syntax above, Jira will not use the saved filter's sorting! In other words, it will ignore the "ORDER BY" clause of the JQL query of the saved filter. (It is a design decision by Atlassian.)

Luckily, you can easily set your sorting by adding the "ORDER BY" clause to the JQL you use with the automation trigger! It will typically look like this:

filter = 10100 ORDER BY key ASC		## executes the saved filter and sorts the result by issue key

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