Report builder
Most Exportelier exports start from something you are already looking at — an issue, a board, a sprint. A report works the other way round: it is a saved object that names its own data. You build it once, and anyone who is allowed to export it gets the current numbers.
A report is exactly two things:
- One template — a normal designer template. There is no separate "report template" and no second designer.
- One or more named data sources — each one a Jira Saved Filter.
Components inside the template are then bound to a source by name, so a single report can show "Support backlog" next to "Engineering escalations" in the same document.
Special Reports: saved reports in the Dashboard tab.
Starting from a Jira dashboard
You can build a report from scratch — pick the filters, drop the report components, bind each one — or you can start from a Jira dashboard you already have.
Import from a Jira dashboard reads the dashboard's configuration and builds an ordinary report from it. It imports what a gadget is configured to show, not a picture of it, and the result does not stay in sync with the dashboard afterwards: the filter data stays live, but layout and configuration change only when you explicitly re-import.
Where reports live
Reports are exported from the Dashboard tab in Special Reports. It includes reports built manually from Saved Filters and reports imported from Jira dashboards. Site admins manage the same records under Templates → Reports; the management list shows each report's name, description, data-source count, template, scope, last update, and whether it is available for export.
Everyone who can use Exportelier sees enabled reports in the Dashboard tab. What you can manage depends on your role.
Who can do what
| Action | Site admin | Any authenticated Jira user |
|---|---|---|
| See the report list | ✅ | ✅ |
| Export an enabled report | ✅ | ✅ |
| Create, edit, duplicate, delete a report | ✅ | — |
| Open the report designer | ✅ | — |
| Add or change data sources | ✅ | — |
Administrative actions are not merely hidden for non-admins — the server refuses them, so calling the API directly does not help.
A site admin can build a report from any filter they can see. That does not grant anyone else access to it. Every export re-reads Jira as the person exporting — see per-user results.
Building a report
The report editor has four parts, in the order you use them:
- Report details — name, description, scope, and whether the report is enabled for export.
- Data sources — add each Saved Filter and give it a name that makes sense in your organisation. See Saved Filter data sources.
- Designer — the ordinary visual designer. Every data component gains a source selector listing your named sources.
- Preview and export — check the binding, then export.
A report cannot be saved while a component has no valid data source. The editor names the offending components rather than quietly binding them to whatever source happens to be first.
A source that no component uses is allowed — you may want to prepare a binding — but the editor says so, and so does the finished export.
Start from the bundled template
New report from Dashboard Report Standard is the fastest way in. It copies the bundled system template into an editable one, asks for at least one Saved Filter, and then asks which data source feeds each of the three standard charts.
With a single filter, that answer is filled in for you. With several, nothing is guessed: the report cannot be created until every chart is assigned, because a wrongly bound chart produces a report that looks right and is not.
The bundled system template itself is never modified.
Exporting a report
Report exports always run in the background, because reading several filters and rendering a document does not fit in an interactive request.
Before the job starts, a preflight checks each data source and shows you what it found — ready, empty, or unavailable, with an issue estimate and a warning when a source will hit the per-source cap. You can then choose PDF, Word (DOCX) or Markdown and start the export.
While it runs you see honest phases — planning, reading Jira filters, rendering, preparing the download — and you can cancel at any point. Report exports appear under Special Reports → History alongside ordinary asynchronous exports, each labelled with its report name, so you can reopen a job after closing the dialog.
The finished document reports what it actually contained: how many issues each source contributed, where a limit truncated it, and any source the report defines but no component uses.
If one of the report's Saved Filters is not available to you, the export fails and names that source. It does not quietly render a smaller report — a document silently missing a data source looks exactly like a complete one.
Limits
Reports have their own caps — data sources per report, issues per source, rows per table, and so on. Every one of them is enforced on the server and named in the output when it actually truncates something. See the limits reference.