When uploading stories (via CSV) to Jira do you need to receate the related epics first?

[Deleted user]

I'm trying to bulk upload a number of business requirements into JIRA. They are grouped by Epics. Will I need to create the epics first in Jira before uploading the CSV? Also will Jira importer accept punctuation and special characters as long as they are within quotes? e.g. "This user story will enable the trader (or Seller) to close/end a trade - daily or monthly"

[Petter Gonçalves · Accepted solution]

Hello @[deleted]

Welcome to the Atlassian Community.

Indeed, you must first import a CSV containing your Epics before importing any issues linked to those Epics in your site.  As you can see in this documentation, there are two things you must check when importing epics:

• When importing from CSV, the Epics need to be imported before the issues with the epic links. If they are imported in the same CSV then the issues will try to associate Epic Links to Epics which have not been created yet. 
• Make sure you don't have 2 Epics with the same Epic Name. This would make the the CSV Importer confused as to which Epic the Story should be linked to.

That being said, these would be the correct steps to properly import your issues linked to Epics using CSV:

1. Create the CSV files: One for Epics, another for standard-issues
2. Import the CSV containing your Epics, making sure you don't have multiple Epics with the same name
3. Import the CSV containing your Standard issues, mapping the Epic name of the previously imported epics to the "Epic Link" column of the Standard issues

P.S: Epics from Next-gen projects can not be imported/mapped through CSV because of the bug below, so the steps above will only work for Classic projects:

NextGen - CSV Import - Failed to assign Epic as IssueType 

About your second question, you're correct: You can use double-quote marks (") around a section of text to treat any special characters in that section literally. Once this data is imported, these special characters will be stored as part of Jira's field data.

For more information about CSV import, you can check the documentation below:

Importing data from CSV 

Let us know if you have any questions.

[Deleted user]

Many Thanks @Petter Gonçalves for taking time to help me. I have managed to upload the stories. I created the Epics manually because there were just 7 to start with but I found the linking did not work because of the issue you mentioned above. I am now going to manually link the Epics. I will keep the documentation handy as I will be importing my next project soon. 

[Petter Gonçalves]

You are welcome @[deleted]

Have a nice weekend and let us know if you have any other questions.

[Pratima Sharma]

Hi Team , 

Can some one share a sample CVS sheet with me .

[Fred van Beek]

I am not working as a system administrator. I only have access to 1 project and start the csv import from the create button in the top menu bar.

I want to upload a file with tasks and subtask, under an already existing Epic.

1. Tasks cannot be related to parent Epic
   For the task, I put as Parent ID the Epic name.
   The validation process responds: Issue 'Task 1' doesn't have Subtask Issue Type, its Parent Id mapping will be ignored.
   So how can I relate tasks to existing Epics? Based on the validation reply it is not possible.
   
   
2. Should the tasks and the sub tasks be in the same or in separate files. 
   
   
3. Subtasks are not uploaded. Error;doesn't have a valid Parent Id selection
   I tried uploading 2 subtasks. For 1 Subtask 1 specified the task name as Parent ID.
   For the other I specified the Issue ID of the task as parent ID.
   None worked,

See upload file below

Issue Type, Issue ID, Parent ID, Summary ,Description , Assignee , Reporter
Task , 100 , TestEpic , Task1 ,Task1 , fvb , fvb
Subtask , 1001 , 100 , Sub of task 1 ,Sub of task 1 , fvb , fvb
Subtask , 1002 , Task1 , sub2 of task 1,sub2 of task 1, fvb , fvb