Jira Service Management is getting a new navigation

We’re in the process of rolling out these changes and the documentation may not match your experience. Bear with us while we update it to reflect the new changes. More about navigating the new Jira

Use basic search and filters to find requests and work items

Can't find the customer work item you've been working on? This page will show you how to search for work items in Jira Service Management. Any agent can search for work items, although they will only see results from projects they have access to, like the 'Browse project' permission.

In the following section, you'll learn how to run a search and use the search results.

Boards can display up to 5,000 work items at a time. If your board is trying to display more than 5,000 work items at once, you'll receive an error message, and be prompted to update your filters. Read about how to configure filters

Perform a quick search

Quick search lets you find work items, projects, boards, queues, and more, including items you’ve worked on recently. To perform a quick search:

Select Search () in the navigation bar (or press / on your keyboard).
Choose from recent items or type to search.
Optionally, filter the search results by choosing a project or assignee.
Select an item or continue to Advanced work item search (press enter on your keyboard).

Before you start typing, the quick search shows recent items you’ve worked with, like work items, projects, boards, queues, and filters.

Search for work items in a project

In the project work item navigator, you can use the text search and field filters to quickly find a work item or set of work items in your project. You can also use preset filters, like my open work items, or use preset and field filters together for a more specific search.

Preset filters are currently only available in company-managed projects.

To find work items in your project:

From your project's sidebar, select Work items.
Select a pre-set filter in the sidebar, set the field filters, or both.
Order and sort the work items using the options at the top of the list of work items.
Select a work item to view or edit it.
Select Reset to clear your search criteria.

We don’t support all work item field filters when you’re searching for work items in a project just yet, but we’re working on it. Select Go to Advanced search for more filtering options.

You can switch from detail view to list view to skim through your search results easily. Select List view to get your search results in the form of a table or spreadsheet. You can log work, update the status, attach files, comment, move, clone, delete and perform other actions on individual work items, without opening them, from this view.

Using the work item navigator, you could search for all work items in your project that:

are bugs
are assigned to Jane
were reported by Fred
are in the in progress status
have “pizza” in a text field

To broaden your search to more projects, select the Project dropdown and pick your projects. Alternatively, you can also select Go to advanced search.

If you're searching against a field, you can select Show full list to view the list of available options against your search criteria. If your list is too long, you can start typing to get to your option faster.

Use the keyboard shortcuts, J (next work item) and K (previous work item), to navigate quickly between work items. Press ? on your keyboard from anywhere in Jira to learn more time-saving keyboard shortcuts.

You can share your refined work item searches with your colleagues. For example, you can track all the work items that are in progress, and share this URL with your team so that they can track them as well.

You can also bookmark your work item searches to visit your work items later on.

To bookmark or share your work item search in your project:

From your project's sidebar, select Work items.
Use the text search field or built-in filters to refine your search criteria.
Save the query with a browser bookmark, or share the URL with your team.

We don’t support filtering for all fields in the project work item navigator just yet, but we’re working on it. If your query is too complex for the project work item navigator, click Advanced search for more filtering options.

Search all of Jira

1. Start a search

To get to the work item search page:

Choose Filters in the navigation bar.
Select Advanced work item search.

Press / then enter on your keyboard to quickly go to advanced search.

2. Define your search criteria

You can use either basic or advanced JQL search modes to define your search criteria.

Basic search

Basic is the default mode for searching in Jira, and will work for most common searches. This mode provides user-friendly filters that let you define complex queries without the need to know JQL (Jira Query Language).

If you're already in the advanced JQL search mode, select Switch to basic to the right of the search filters to access the Basic mode.

Advanced JQL search

This mode lets you specify advanced criteria that can't be defined in the other searches (for example, the ORDER BY clause) using JQL (Jira Query Language). Select Switch to JQL to the right of the search filters to access this mode.

If you’re in a project, you can toggle between Basic and JQL. More about searching for work items in a project

3. Change your view of the search results

Once you've run your search either in a project or from advanced search, you can change how the results are displayed by changing the view, sort order, and columns shown.

Choose list or detail view

List view is where each work item is a row and its details are in columns (similar to a spreadsheet). In the detail view, work items are shown on the left and the selected work item’s details appear on the right.

From advanced search, select the view toggle (or ) at the top-right of the search screen and select List view or Detail view.
If you’re in a project, select List view or Detail view to change the way your search results look.

Change the sort order

In list view, click the column name to change sort order.

In detail view, Choose ˅to the right of Order by above the work item list and search for a field to set the order.

Show/hide columns in list view

Select Columns above the search results on the right, and pick the columns you'd like to show.

4. Edit work items in search results

The work item navigator lets you action individual work items or the entire set of work items returned by your search.

Individual work items

View the work item: Select the work item key or name.
Action individual work items: Hover over a work item row, select More actions () for that work item, then select an option.

All work items in the search results

Export the search results to different formats, like Excel and XML: Select Export () and choose the desired format.
Share the search results: Select Share (), then enter the recipient's details.
Create an RSS feed: Select Export (), then RSS or RSS (with comments).
Bulk modify work items in search results: Select More actions () above the search results, then select Bulk change all <n> work item(s).

For a more detailed explanation of what you can do with work items in search results, read Working with search results

5. Save your search

If you often run the same search, you can save it as a filter to save you from having to manually redefine the search criteria every time.

Select Save as at the top of the search results page.
Enter a name for the filter and choose Submit.

Your new filter appears in the left panel with your other starred filters and predefined filters like My open work items, Reported by me, Viewed recently, and All work items.

6. Print search results

After you’ve run your search criteria, and you’re happy with your search results, you can print them to populate physical task boards and track progress, thereby improving your team’s performance. You can print the results as a list to easily skim through your work items, or with work item details to dig deeper.

To print your search results:

Select Export ().
Select Print list (only in Advanced search) or Print details.

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