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Bulk move subtasks' issue type while keeping their parent tickets

Luyang Zhang_q6wbuh

Hi all,

I am an Org admin for our Jira instance, and need to update about 6000+ subtask tickets. My goal is to keep everything the same, including their parent links, and only bulk change their issue type to two different subtask-types.

However, when I try to bulk change, the system ask me to either "select parent issue" for each subtask which requires me to click 6000+ times manually, or "apply this mapping for all" which will incorrectly link all those subtasks to one parent ticket.

Meanwhile, I do not have authority to install 3rd-party plugin.

Many thanks!

Screenshot 2025-11-21 162809.png

Accepted answers

Trudy P Claspill

Hello @Luyang Zhang

I think the only way to accomplish this will be through use of Automation Rules or custom code that leverages the API.

Typically Jira Admins can create automation rules. They can also grant that capability to Space Administrators to create rules for individual spaces that they administer.

If you are neither a Space Administrator for the spaces where these issue exist or a Jira Administrator, then you would need to get help from such people to create a Automation Rules to handle this.

There are also limits on how many items a single run of an Automation Rule can operate against, and for how much time a single rule can spend cumulatively executing within 24 hours. You would like have to set up rules that would run multiple times over the course of multiple days in order to accomplish this task.

Do either automation rules or custom code using the API seem like viable options for you?

All comments

John Funk

Hi Luyang,

I assume the new Sub-task type has a different workflow than the current Sub-task? Is this a newly created Sub-task type? Or do you already have several work items created against it?

Trudy P Claspill

Hello @Luyang Zhang

I think the only way to accomplish this will be through use of Automation Rules or custom code that leverages the API.

Typically Jira Admins can create automation rules. They can also grant that capability to Space Administrators to create rules for individual spaces that they administer.

If you are neither a Space Administrator for the spaces where these issue exist or a Jira Administrator, then you would need to get help from such people to create a Automation Rules to handle this.

Do either automation rules or custom code using the API seem like viable options for you?

Luyang Zhang_q6wbuh

Hi John,

Not really. They are all sharing the same workflow, and that's why it brothers me a lot.

And yes, there are already several work items created in all those different issue types.

Screenshot 2025-12-01 171431.png

John Funk

Well if they share the same workflow, then you should be able to simply Edit the Work Type field (issuetype field behind the scenes).

Luyang Zhang_q6wbuh

Right. However, since there are over 6000 issues involve, the issues I'm facing now are

using automation: according to the official documents, each run of the automation can only cover 150 tasks in a For loop.
using bulk change: the system requires me to click them one by one as I posted at the beginning, which is not really doable.

I am not sure what the best practice is here. Please advise, many thanks

Luyang Zhang_q6wbuh

Hi Trudy,

Thank you for your reply.

I am an Org admin for our Jira instance, so I have all kinds of permission.

The problem of using automation is that the system does not allow me to run it since the JQL covers more than 100 issues, despite I set it as once a day.

Could you please help advice the next step?

Screenshot 2025-12-02 114202.png

Trudy P Claspill

I recommend that you change the JQL in your trigger to reduce the number of issues it is retrieving. Rather than getting all the issues at once, perhaps add a criteria for

created > date1 and created < date2

There is a limit of 999 items that can be retrieved by a Scheduled Trigger JQL, so you need to change the JQL to accommodate that.

https://support.atlassian.com/cloud-automation/docs/automation-service-limits/

After the first 999 issues have been processed you would need to change the JQL to get a new date range of issues, and so on, until you've gotten through all the issues.

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