JIRA is one of the most used bug tracking system and one of its main features is the search mechanism. There are two modes when searching for issues on JIRA: Basic and Advanced. The basic one is composed of a set of filters you can select and define values. Even though the basic mode is enough for most cases, it does not allow you to run some more complex queries.
Today I’ll present the WAS operator that can be used by writing JQL queries in Advanced mode and that allows you to search for issues based on the property values in the past. This can be extremely useful if you want, for instance, to collect history data or to evaluate changes against to such a property.
This operator can only be used with the following properties: Assignee, Fix Version, Priority, Reporter, Resolution and Status fields only.
Examples:
Find all bugs that were open last week
issuetype in (Bug, Defect) AND resolution WAS IN (Unresolved, EMPTY) before endOfWeek(-7d)
Find all stories that were resolved last week and that are now closed
issuetype = Story AND status WAS Resolved DURING (startOfWeek(-7d), endOfWeek(-7d)) AND status = Closed
Find all stories that were unassigned in the last two days
issuetype = Story AND assignee WAS EMPTY DURING (endOfDay(-2d), now()) AND assignee IS NOT EMPTY