How to import issues with the Task or Epic Issue Type, instead of Story

Question

I am a JIRA Cloud user with system / administrator access.

A new project was created in JIRA, with only one Task currently.

All the relevant issue types (Epic, Story, Bug, Task and Sub-Task) have been enabled for this project.

The Start Date and Due date fields have been added as default issue fields.

I want to import additional issues into this project, so I did the following:

* Created a .csv file with the following headings (each of which is populated with a value):

-Summary

-Issue Type

-Status

-Priority

-Assignee

-Custom field (Start date)

-Due date

* Imported the .csv file using the import mechanism (Settings – System – External System Import - CSV)

* I am not using an existing configuration file, so I didn’t select this option when importing.

* I specified the date format as per the format in the .csv file, i.e.  yyyy/mm/dd hh:mm

* I mapped the csv fields to the corresponding JIRA fields, and they were all an exact match (apart from the “Custom field (Start date)” in thecsv file, which is mapped to the “Start date” field in JIRA).

Result:

The import ran successfully without any error notifications. However I am experiencing 2 issues:

* The Issues keep uploading as the type “Story” (even though I have defined them as Epic or Task in the Issue Type column on the csv. file).

* The Start Date is not uploading - even though I have mapped the formula correctly prior to importing (yyyy/mm/dd hh:mm), and even tried changing the csv file column header from

I have done multiple attempts and followed various posts in your forum. There’s quite a lot of information around importing but I have been unable to find something to resolve my specific problem.

Larry_lef52k · Answer

This is all just very sad.

Celeste Momsen · Answer

Good day

Thanks again for the assistance provided on April 13. As per my previous response, I will need to use a workaround for the Issue Type issue for now.

However I still require some assistance with the issue of the Start Date not being added to issues that are imported.

You advised that there may be a "Start date" field in my Classic projects that is conflicting with the one I'm trying to upload in my Next-gen project. You suggested changing the name of the field to something else (e.g. "Next-gen Start date") and trying another import.

I did this, but the Start date still did not import. Is there anything else that you could suggest regarding this?

Thank you

Celeste Momsen · Answer

Hi Petter

Thanks for your response.

I am using a Next-gen project.

RE: The Start Date Issue:
I changed the name of the column header field in my .csv file from "Start date" to "Next-gen Start date", and reimported it. (I mapped this field to the "Start date" JIRA field prior to importing, and used the same date format as before, i.e. yyyy/mm/dd hh:mm). However the Start date still did not import.

RE: The Issue Type Issue:
Thanks for advising of the bug with .csv importing for Next-gen projects, plus the suggestion to use the bulk operation to change the issue types. I've already tried this and it works. The only challenge is that after bulk-changing the issue types, it's an extra manual exercise to link the tasks to their corresponding Epic.
I looked at the documentation you referenced (for migrating the issues from a Classic to Next-gen project) - however it mentions that the links between Epics and Child issues are not retained when migrating from Classic to Next-gen. So this option would unfortunately not work. I will need to stick with my bulk-change and manual Epic-Child linking process for now, until the bug is resolved on the Atlassian side.