Importing new information to already created Jira tickets

Question

I have a queue that tracks different people as "tasks" and other information on them within that task. The relevant data here is "current company."

I have about 60 out of 300 overall that I need to update their current company and I have a couple of questions about importing that new information as a CSV file.

1. Do I need to have lines for all 300 tasks, even if their information isn't being updated, OR can I just map them to the specific task (using either summary information or their task ID number).

2. Do I need to have a column for all of the potential fields in our tasks or can I map to the "Current Company" field as part of the import? (2 columns versus I don't know how many columns).

Ivan Manolov _Appfire_ · Answer

@Brittany Huffman one more thing that might save you some hassle here. If you're open to apps from the Atlassian Marketplace, the app my team and I are working on, JXL for Jira, lets you skip the CSV cycle altogether.

JXL gives you a spreadsheet view of your Jira issues where you can edit fields directly in the browser. For your use case you'd filter the sheet to your 60 tasks, then either type the new "Current Company" values one by one or copy-paste them straight from Excel/Google Sheets into the JXL cells. All changes save back to Jira immediately.

No admin permissions needed, no mandatory Summary column, and you see all your data in one view while editing.

Disclosure: I work for the team that builds JXL.

Cheers,

Ivan

Ivan Manolov _Appfire_ · Answer

Hi @Brittany Huffman,

As @Trudy P Claspill mentioned, you only need rows for the 60 issues you're updating. Here's the full picture:

CSV Import (updating existing issues)

Your CSV only needs three columns:

* Issue Key (e.g., PROJ-42) to identify which issue to update
* Summary (required by Jira even if you're not changing it)
* Current Company with the new values

No need to include all 300 issues or all fields. Just the 60 rows you want to change.

To do the import: Jira Settings → System → External System Import → CSV. Map your columns to the corresponding Jira fields and run it. One important caveat: this requires site/org admin access. If you don't have it, you'll need to ask your Jira admin.

Alternative: native Bulk Change

If you can identify the 60 issues via a JQL filter and they're all getting the same value, Jira's built-in bulk change is faster:

* Run a filter that returns your 60 issues
* Select all → Bulk Change → Edit Issues
* Update the "Current Company" field

This skips the export/import cycle entirely, but only works when you're setting the same value across all selected issues. For 60 different values, CSV is the way to go.

Hope that clears it up!

Cheers,

Ivan

Trudy P Claspill · Answer

Hello @Brittany Huffman

Welcome to the Atlassian community.

1. You need rows only for the items you want to update.

2. To use CSV Import to update issues you need the following columns:

Issue key

Summary - Even if you don't intend to change it this field is always required as part of the CSV file.

The fields you want to update

You also must use the External System Import feature, which is available only to Jira Administrators.