Jira Import function duality

[Marlon Leong]

Why is there two Jira import functions?

one from the project, ticket create menu

the other from system>import and export

did you guys code two import functions? each can import certain fields  making both not fully useful. for instance issue description can be imported on the create method and not available in the external system import. create can't do parent/epic import but external can....  or am I wrong? bugs? why not make them the same function. external hides the advance deliminator feature which shouldn't be a hidden function. I've seen many issues in regarded trying to import issues, can Atlassian please make a more uniform and user friendly importing tool.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Accepted solution]

Yes, Atlassian did it twice.

Many many years ago, they added an import that enabled administrators to import lists of issues.  

his one has to be limited to administrators because it allows us to import cross-project, broken data, and configuration data (options on custom fields, new users, etc).

Later, project import was written, and it is limited because it won't let you import duff data, change configuration that is limited to admins and so on.

I don't know why you say "issue description is not available" - both imports have always supported issue description as a system field (the first version of the project import only handled the system fields, but all of them, of which description is one)

Also, project import does handle Epic links.