Like named departments in JQL search

[Matthew Gaffney]

When doing a JQL advanced search we have an issue with like named departments. We want to see everything where

Department ~ "Technology"

but not see

Department ~ "Educational Technology Media Services"

. 

We found that we can exclude the Media Services issues by including a search similar to this: 

Department ~ "Technology" AND Department !~ "Media"

But really this is all part of a larger advanced search for multiple departments within a college. We'd like to come up with a way to find all these departments without having to exclude any other like named departments across campus. 

Another couple of departments are even closer in name "Health & Recreation Services" and "Health, Recreation & Community Services". 

Any clarity anyone can provide is much appreciated. 

Thank you! 

[Matthew Gaffney · Accepted solution]

After working through with support, it took a re-index to have the full effect. 

This was the fix:

I assume you connected the "Department" field with a user Profile field. In the "User Profile Settings" under "User Profile Fields" you can change the configuration of the search template. In your case I would recommend the "Exact Searcher" for your case. This enables you to search for an exact term with the EQUALS operator "=" instead of the CONTAINS operator "~".

[Matthew Gaffney]

With the AddOn Script Runner it is possible to search for the exact text phrase. Just use the term: issueFunction in issueFieldExactMatch("SubQuerry", "Field Name", "Field Value")

[Matthew Gaffney]

Searching and working internally we found this article and think maybe using a Required term: + might help?

https://confluence.atlassian.com/jiracoreserver073/search-syntax-for-text-fields-861257223.html

[Matthew Gaffney]

Except for (Department ~ "+Technology") doesn't exclude "Educational Technology & Media Services".

[Matthew Gaffney]

(Department ~ "+Technology -Media") is the best we've come up with so far. But we are looking for a solution that is an exact search on the custom field "Department" tied to the User Profiles for JIRA app. Exact searches should future proof this when department names change or are added. 

[Matthew Gaffney]

It looks like this is something that people have wanted for a decade:

https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRASERVER-21372

[Matthew Gaffney]

Further we spoke to the folks at Communardo Support (User Profiles for JIRA):

I assume you connected the "Department" field with a user Profile field. In the "User Profile Settings" under "User Profile Fields" you can change the configuration of the search template. In your case I would recommend the "Exact Searcher" for your case. This enables you to search for an exact term with the EQUALS operator "=" instead of the CONTAINS operator "~".

This change didn't fix our issue, so we reached back to them again:

This is actually not related to our app. There are two feature requests at Atlassian for this:

• https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRASERVER-17463
• https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRASERVER-21372

Please watch those issues if you want to be notified about any changes and vote for them. Atlassian is gathering interest and therefore also looking how many customers are voting for it.