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Copying or cloning an Epic to another JIRA Project

Jose M Gonzalez

I have a JIRA project which contains several Epics with User Stories. There is one Epic which is identical from one JIRA Project to another (GxP User Stories) which I will like to have in both projects. Can I copy (clone) the Epic from one project to the other so I can have the contents of that Epic in separate projects?

What happens if I clone an Epic with User Stories in it? Is a new Epic number assigned to the cloned Epic? How about the User Stories within the cloned Epic - do they get new numbers or do they keep the same User Story numbers?

Thanks in advance.

Accepted answers

Mark Segall

Hi @Jose M Gonzalez and welcome to the community!

Can I copy (clone) the Epic from one project to the other so I can have the contents of that Epic in separate projects?

Yes - This is possible with automation. Assuming you're on Jira cloud. Here's an example... On this rule, the user opens the epic, clicks Jira Automation, and executes this rule. The rule then clones the epic to Project B and then iterates through all of the children issues and clones them as well (setting them to the new epic)

What happens if I clone an Epic with User Stories in it?

As you see in my example above, it's up to you. My example rule will clone any related stories. You could choose to ignore them, only clone based upon business logic, etc.

Is a new Epic number assigned to the cloned Epic? How about the User Stories within the cloned Epic - do they get new numbers or do they keep the same User Story numbers?

The source issues will retain their key. Cloned issues will get a dedicated new key tied to their destination project (e.g. PROJECTB-123).

All comments

Mark Segall

Hi @Jose M Gonzalez and welcome to the community!

Can I copy (clone) the Epic from one project to the other so I can have the contents of that Epic in separate projects?

What happens if I clone an Epic with User Stories in it?

As you see in my example above, it's up to you. My example rule will clone any related stories. You could choose to ignore them, only clone based upon business logic, etc.

Is a new Epic number assigned to the cloned Epic? How about the User Stories within the cloned Epic - do they get new numbers or do they keep the same User Story numbers?

The source issues will retain their key. Cloned issues will get a dedicated new key tied to their destination project (e.g. PROJECTB-123).

Mark Williams_svuh32

Mark,

Is there a way to provide the user a list of projects and for them to select multiple projects to clone the issues to? I have a user that would like to clone the Epic and its stories to multiple projects and the list will change each time he/she runs the clone

Mark

Mark Segall

Hi @Mark Williams - Yes, but I've found this easiest to manage through Insight:

Create an object type for Projects with a minimum of the following attributes:
- Project Name
- Project ID
- Issue Type ID (reference to Issue Types object)
Create an object type for Issue Types with the following attributes
- Issue Type Name (e.g. Task)
- Issue Type ID
Populate your object types accordingly
Create a custom Insight field to serve as a "Project Picker"

AUTOMATION

For the automation trigger you can go one of two ways:

Project Picker is updated - This is quick and easy because you just need to make sure the project picker field is available on the screen
Issue Transitioned - I've created a new status like "Clone Request" with a transition screen that has the project picker on it

The biggest thing about this approach is that you need to feed the clone project and issue type with a smart value based upon what was selected in your project picker. For example...

Project

{{triggerissue.customfield_xxxxx.projectID}}

Issue Type

{{triggerissue.customfield_xxxxx.issueType.issueTypeID}}

Marlene Kegel - codefortynine

Welcome to the community, @Jose M Gonzalez

I am Marlene from codefortynine.

Another option would be our Jira cloud app Deep Clone for Jira.

With our app you can clone Epics and larger issue trees and move them to other projects while cloning.

Simply navigate to the parent issue you want to bulk clone
Tap on the three-dots menu on the top right of the issue
Click Deep Clone
Select "Epic/Tree Clone" and follow the instructions on the Deep Clone dialog.

You can read more about the order of issue keys after cloning in our documentation.

Mark Williams_svuh32

Thank you for the answers.

Marlene, Deep Clone does not allow me to choose the 50 - 75 projects I need to clone the tickets to. I have to do them individually. Also, the 50 - 75 projects might be 80 -120 next time.

Mark

Mathieu Lepoutre _Exalate_

Hi @Jose M Gonzalez

I'm working as a pre-sales engineer with Exalate.

Automatically cloning Epics with their stories to another instance with every field attached you so please, is the bread and butter of sExalate.

The ticket/epic/story (any type) will out-of-the-box be fully bi-directionally syncronized, which means, if a field gets updated on either side, it will automatically update on the other side, you can change this to make it uni-directional if you so please.

Exalate is easy and straightforward to set-up and you can control exactly which data you want to send and/or receive.

If you would like to see a customized demo of the product, please book a slot with us.

Cheers

Mathieu Lepoutre

Arnd Layer

@Mark Segallhave you considered also copying sub-tasks?

AFAIK, you can't nest branches in automation rules. So you would have to create a 2nd rule that is triggered by the 1st one and clones sub-tasks for each cloned task.

One could use a hidden filed as trigger. I've created a custom field "admin-label" (type: labels) that does not appear in any view for this use case.

The problem is that I also need to know the task-level issue that has been cloned. So I would have to branch out using the linked issues branch, which the again would require nested branching to iterate over the subtasks. So this looks like a dead end as well.

Any ideas?

Arnd Layer

There is now a rule in the automation library:

"Clone an Epic from one company-managed project to another with all existing issues"

This does not clone Sub-tasks

Mariam Omran

Hello @Mark Segall ,

I have followed the steps mentioned above, however whenever I open any of my epics and start refreshing for automation rules to run the one I created, it doesn't come up.. any idea why?

ThankS,

Mariam

Mark Segall

Hi @Mariam Omran and welcome to the community!

Because this thread is long and loaded with people. Can you please raise a new question and @mention me? Be sure to include screenshots of your rule and rule audit log as this will help me investigate the problem.

Mariam Omran

hello @Mark Segall thank you so much.. I have done that now.

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