Description

CSV Export for “Select List (multiple choices)” fields, is very unfriendly compared with prior Export to Excel

I can’t say the CSV is actually wrong, since it may be syntactically correct per CSV file format.  BUT, I consider this is a significant degradation compared with the prior direct Export to Excel, because the prior version was much easier to use the resulting Excel file.

How to replicate

• Create “Test-Field” of type “Select List (multiple choices)”
  • Set 4 options for the field: “option1”, “option2”, “option3”, “option4”
• Create a ticket and set “Test-field” with the following options
  • “option1”, “option2”, “option3”
• Run a filter with the ticket and show field “Test-Field”
  • Export / “CSV (Current fields)”
  • Open directly in Excel (or view the CSV as well)

Result in Excel

• The 3 options for this ticket are each in their own Excel column as if they are totally separate data fields
  • Row 1 (field names) will have the same field name repeated
    • Cells A1, B1, C1 will all be = “Custom field (Test-Field)”
  • Row 2 (Data) will have the 3 options
    • Cell A2 = option1, B2 = option2, C2 = option3
  • Note – If there were 4 options selected for this field, then there would be 4 columns of data
  • So the amount of columns used is variable based on the maximum number needed for the ticket with the most selections
    • For example, say my filter has 100 records
    • Most records have 3 options selected, but one of them has 10 options selected
    • 10 columns will be created for this field, but unused for most of the records

Expected results (based on prior Export to Excel option in previous JIRA)

• 1 column with all the options, each separated by a comma
• No change in number of columns regardless of how many options selected for this field
• Row 1 (field names)
  • Cells A1 = “Test-Field”
• Row 2 (Data)
  • Cell A2 = “option1, option2, option3”

Why is this a problem

• We use filter with a large number of records, columns and do analysis, tables, charts etc in Excel
• When reviewing, this forces much scrolling left to right to find the actual data, because many of our multiple choice columns may have up to 10 values used
• Some of our work in Excel is automated and based on where a column of data is expected

Note – this is using Excel 2016 (Office 365 ProPlus)