21. 03. 2025
Atlassian, Service Management
In this period of Smart Working I am deepening my study of Atlassian products, in particular Jira Software and Jira Service Desk.
One of the things that impressed me most about Atlassian products is the flexibility of the search engine given by the JQL (Jira Query Language).
I must say that initially when I saw the first examples of JQL I looked at it with suspicion. I’m used to querying MySQL to find the data I need, and a higher level language didn’t seem like it would be that flexible to me.
I was wrong, because I had the mindset of the system administrator who has access to the entire database and looks for practically all the data entered into the system, while often the person who accesses the data is an operator or a supervisor.
And I was also wrong because I had not yet seen all the JQL Operators and the many functions that you can use.
To give you some examples, thanks to the operators WAS, WAS IN, WAS NOT, WAS NOT IN, and CHANGED, it’s possible to go back to the list of open tickets in a range of dates which a normal “agent side” search doesn’t really show.
Here’s an example of a JQL statement:
status WAS "Open" AND (created >= <start date> and created <= <end date>)
Also thanks to JQL Functions you can have the list of tickets created or modified since the last time the operator logged on.
Here are two examples of beautiful JQL functions:
- With the following statement you can search all issues created or updated from the user’s last login:
created >= lastLogin() OR updated >= lastLogin()
- With the following statement you can search all issues updated from the user’s last login and assigned to the current user:
updated > lastlogin() AND assignee = currentUser()
The possibilities are many. In addition, the filters can be shared with other agents and can be used to feed dashboards and graph results.
On the internet you can find many examples and tutorials on the use of JQL, certainly a theme to be explored further!
Gabriele Cecco
Technical Consultant at Würth Phoenix
I’m Gabriele Cecco, a consultant at Wuerth Phoenix with extensive experience in ITSM processes. Over the years, I’ve worked with various ITSM software tools, and since 2020, I’ve specialized in the Atlassian suite, earning certifications and helping many companies configure their Atlassian products.
In my free time, I enjoy listening to science and entertainment podcasts, watching movies and TV series, and traveling. I’m passionate about exploring the world, and when I’m not traveling abroad, I love spending weekends in South Tyrol with my wife and our minivan, Windy.
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