Preserve issue numbers from data migration?

Question

I am doing some investigation on data migration and do not see what happens when a project's data has been imported. The CSV file contains a column with existing IDs for the issues. Do those IDs get preserved in JIRA, or do they get mapped to another number. If so, how do I know what the new numbers are? I would like to then go back and import attachments and comments associated with these issues in a second third pass. If I only have the original numbers, how can I do this?

Thanks!

Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Answer

Very good point, the more recent versions of the importer are a lot more flexible, if you are on a Jira that supportes them.

Wojciech Seliga · Answer

Hey,

Most of answers here do not take into consideration newest features available as of JIRA Importers Plugin (JIM) version 4.3.

1. Preserving issue key. JIM can create for you while importing from CVS an issue with the exact issue key you specified in CSV. Just define which column from your CSV file is mapped to Issue Key.

2. JIM can update already existing issues (if an issue pointed to by the mapped Issue Key column already exists) and thus you can easily add comments and attachments to existing issues in multiple passes.

Cheers,

Wojtek

Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Answer

For CSV, Jira will create issues with IDs as though a user had typed them in one at a time.  e.g. if your project has ABC-123 as the latest issue, and you import items from CSV, line 1 will be ABC-124, line 2 will be ABC-125 and so-on.  The id in the file can be imported like any other custom field, but won't be used as the Jira key.  If you plan carefully, you can set up the project so that it starts at the right number and then use dummy padding lines in the file, as Bob says.