Updating Epic Link in Bulk Edit on Team Project - No Epics Listed

[Lisa Scannell]

I am importing multiple stories into my team managed project. Since I cannot add the Epic Link in the import, I'm trying to first import the stories and then use bulk edit to assign these stories to an epic.

But when I use the Bulk Edit tool and select Change Epic Link, no epics are found. I tried manually typing in the epic name and the epic key and it says the epic doesn't exist. But I triple verified the epic exists under the same project. I validated that all the stories I'm trying to update are actually story issue types.  I can open these same stories individually and add the epic but it won't recognize any valid epics in the bulk importer.

I also tried using Parent ID and there's a message that says to use Epic Link.

[Simon Smith]

I came across this looking for an answer to the same issue.    On the bulk change edit screen, go to the bottom of the window and see if there is an "unavailable options" drop down.

For me the Change Parent was in there and I couldn't change it because all of the items I had selected for bulk change were not on the same level - i.e. some were already children.

Go back to the main issue screen and add the Parent filter, then add 'No Parent' and do the bulk edit.  You should now be able to see the Change Parent drop down with all your epics in it.

[Walter Buggenhout]

Hi @Lisa Scannell and welcome to the Community!

Team managed projects don't use the epic link field, but parent. This support article on importing data from csv has an example of how to prepare your csv file to import (amongst many other things) parent-child relationships.

To update the link in bulk, make sure you start from the issues view inside your team managed project (not the filter > all issues option from the top level navigation). Locate the issues you want to update and start a bulk change operation there. Select the change parent option to select the desired epic:

Hope this helps!

[Lisa Scannell]

Can you see my screen shot 2? There is where I'm trying to bulk edit stories and when I click on the change parent it just displays a message "to set an epic as the parent use the epic link instead" and if I try to just type in the epic number it won't accept it.

It also won't accept in the epic link.

I noticed that your screen shot has "Change Parent". Mine says "Change Parent Link". Maybe that means it's different somehow.

[Trudy Claspill]

Hello @Lisa Scannell 

Welcome to the Atlassian community.

I am a little confused.

Looking at the first screen that shows your search results, the search is set up to retrieve Epic type issues. Are those the issues you are trying to update with your Bulk Change? Or are you showing that just to show proof that the project has Epics in it?

If you are selecting issues to update using a different filter, please show us that filter also.

[Lisa Scannell]

I just included the first screen shot to show that I did have an epic set up, as example SOM-10.  I was then doing a bulk edit of 5 stories and trying to assign them to epic SOM-10, but JIRA tells me SOM-10 does not exist (see screen shot 3).

I had also seen some comments to use parent link instead but I have the same problem in that field.

[Trudy Claspill]

I found a Premium system to test this out. There I set up a Team Managed Software project and created one Epic, one Task, and one Subtask.

I did a search for the Task issue and then selected the Bulk Change > Edit options.

I found all three fields listed in the Edit screen in Bulk Change:

• Parent
• Parent Link
• Epic Link

Trying to use the Epic Link field in a Team Managed project will not work, because Team Managed projects never used the Epic Link field. The message you see when touching the Parent Link field is misleading, specifically for Team Managed projects.

Team Managed projects always used the Parent field to note the parent Epic of an issue. To set the parent Epic of a Team Managed standard level issue in Bulk Change you need to update the "Parent" field specifically

Can you find an option in your screen for "Change Parent" vs. "Change Parent Link"