Announcing the Enhanced Bulk Move API: Move parent and child issues in one request!

[#1]

Hi Atlassian Community!

We’ve heard your feedback and are excited to unveil our latest enhancement to the Bulk move issues API. This update makes it easier to move issues across projects and work types, and marks an important step in modernising the bulk move functionality to provide you with a more streamlined experience.

Whats changing?

Previously, the Bulk move issues API was limited to moving issues of a single work type from one project to a single work type in another (or the same) project. Additionally, it did not support setting an epic for standard issues in a request. While this was sufficient for simple migrations, it complicated the process of moving large volumes of issues, especially those spanning multiple types and projects, requiring numerous API calls.

With our latest update, the Bulk move issues API addresses these problems. You can now move multiple issues of different work types from various projects into a single work type in a new or existing project, all in a single request. Furthermore, you can now assign an epic to standard issues during a bulk move by specifying the target epic as their parent in your request.

These enhancements significantly reduce the number of API calls required for complex migrations and streamlines the process of moving epics and their child issues to a new project. Ultimately, this update delivers a faster, more efficient bulk move experience for teams managing large-scale changes.

How do I know if my use case is supported?

Previously supported and continued support:

• Moving issues of one work type from one source project to a target project and work type in a single request.

• Moving a parent issue of a standard work type A, with its multiple subtasks, in one project to an issue of a standard work type B in the same project or a different project.

Newly supported

• Moving parent issues of multiple standard work types from multiple source projects to a target project and standard work types in a single request.

• Setting a target parent for issues, while preserving issue hierarchy, during a move request.

We’d love to hear from you

If you’re interested in shaping the future of bulk operations in Jira or would like to suggest improvements so Jira is better for you and your team, we’d love to hear from you.

Book a time to chat with the team 🗓️ or drop your feedback below. We’re excited to hear what you think!

Documentation and further info

Bulk Operation APIs: Additional Examples and FAQs

What are work types? | Atlassian Support

Bulk move issues API

[Oleksii Melnyk]

Hello! Do I understand correctly that this will only work if the workflows are the same?

[Lumina Gajanayake]

Hi Oleksii!

If you are referring to if the workflows between the source project and the target project need to be the same then don't worry that's not the case! There are two options:

1. You can either set inferStatusDefaults as true and those issues with a status that doesn't exist in the target workflow will have that statues changed to the default status of the target workflow.
2. You can set inferStatusDefaults as false and provide a targetStatusMapping object to map statuses in the source workflow, that are not present in the target workflow, to a valid status in the target workflow.

If you are referring to if the workflows of all the issues being moved need to be the same then that is not the case! 

I hope this answers your question.

[Oleksii Melnyk]

Thanks @Lumina GajanayakeWill this also work for JSM and Jira Automation?

[Lumina Gajanayake]

Hi Oleksii,

No worries at all! If you are referring to if this will work for JSM projects then yes it will!

I'm not sure what specifically you are referring to in regards to Jira Automation, would you please be able to clarify?

Best regards,

Lumina