How to change Display name of column Headings displayed via JQL JIRA Issue Filter on Confluence page
Asked by Saurabh Tripathi:

I am Displaying few records via JQL Query on my Confluence page. The display options uses only the columns that are in JIRA while i want to change(map) their display names to my own custom fields. I have checked Table filter feature but that is not the solution i am looking at.

For example:

**My Confluence view** **Fields** **JIRA Fields**

S.No. Key

Description Summary

S.No. Description


Answers:
author: Stephen Sifers
body: Hello Saurabh,

Linking data from Jira to Confluence can make it easier to get the data you need while staying within one product. Using JQL to create focused reported within Confluence can be a huge time saver we needed to look at specific sets of data. With this said, since your are pulling data from Jira into Confluence, if you change the column headers to a different naming scheme from what is recorded within Jira then this may lead to confusion between the products. Ideally, you would want to keep the existing headers to allow for easier understand when switching between the products.

You may have a use case in which you do need to change the headers as the users consuming the report do not see or work within Jira. Can you expand more on your use case for needing to do this?

Once we have a better understanding of your requirements to change the column headers we can help with finding the best solution to fit your needs.

Regards,

Stephen Sifers

comments: author: Saurabh Tripathi
body: Hi Stephen,  
I am using Confluence for MI reporting and the senior stakeholders involved does not see or work in JIRA. Hence the dashboard I am creating for MI must have Custom field descriptions because some of my JIRA fields are like ex; Text, Long Description, Field A etc; Hence I want to have more generic field names for my MI reporting.

Regards,  
Saurabh


author: Stephen Sifers
body: Hello again Saurabh,

Thank you for the clarification of how the users will consume your Confluence reports.

While in your case, the user(s) consuming the report are not working within Jira, you would ideally want to ensure your fields in Jira are easily understandable to all, not just the users consuming the reports. With this said, it would be best to rename the fields within Jira to match more accurately to their use. This would be a large undertaking if there are a lot of generic descriptors used within Jira.

There are marketplace add-ons which may allow you to modify the functionality of the Jira Issue Macro table itself. However, they may not allow for the adjustment of the column headers/titles. You may find add-ons within the [Atlassian Marketplace](https://marketplace.atlassian.com/search?query=table).

A work around for this would be to consider applying Javascript to the page to allow you to find and replace the table headers/titles. This undertaking would allow you to edit only the pages/tables you needed. You may find more about Javascript in Confluence at [How to use JavaScript in Confluence](https://confluence.atlassian.com/confkb/how-to-use-javascript-in-confluence-313458839.html). Please note that Javascript will only function within Confluence server and is not available within Confluence Cloud.

I hope this helps to give you options for editing the titles of your tables.

Regards,  
Stephen Sifers


author: Clement
body: Hello Stephen,   
I do have the same need as Saurabh with a strong use case of why we need different title/headers in Confluence than in JIRA: the main reason is that in JIRA, you need to specify the custom field name quite correctly and extensively to prevent the field to be mistaken in JQL queries and new setup of projects. For instance, if you use only "KPI 1" as a custom field name, it will be confusing for each time a user search a KPI. So an appropriate title would be "Project KPI: Planning". And then, in Confluence or even in a "filter result" gadget of a JIRA dashboard, a "Project KPI: planning" and other similar columns will take way too much horizontal screen-estate, with the annoying horizontal scrollbar showing up and a lot of white space.

So we want to use a shortname for this column, such as "KPI P" as users know well they are on the page "Projects" (for instance) and therefore the "KPI P" means "Project KPI: Planning". And also re-use in Confluence the icons proposed by the Atlassian Icon for custom field plugin (that is not working at the moment) to avoid the same border-effect with long values in fields.   

PS: same problem with URL custom field. In my case, 99% of users do not need to see all the characters of a URL, a simple clickable icon would be much better.

<br />

I did search for plugins/addons to do so without success.   
Could you please develop on how to do such tweaks with the use of Javascript in Confluence? Or indicate which pages exactly show such example (using the JIRA table macro)?  

Thanks in advance and kind regards,

Cl?ment


Tags: jira

jql