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Unable to map Issue Key when importing CSV to update existing issues

Ait Benhida Fatimaezzahra

Hello,

I am a Jira Administrator, and I am trying to update an existing custom field (Domain) on existing issues using System → External System Import → CSV.

My CSV file contains:

Issue key;Summary;Domain
During the mapping step:

I can map Summary.
I can map Domain (custom field).
However, I cannot find Issue Key in the Jira field mapping list.
I expected to map:

Issue key → Issue Key
Summary → Summary
Domain → Domain
but Issue Key is not available at all.

I am using:

Jira Administration → System → External System Import → CSV
Company-managed project
Jira Administrator permissions
My goal is to update existing issues, not create new ones.

Has anyone experienced this? Is there a specific setting, permission, or Jira version limitation that would prevent Issue Key from being available during CSV import?

Thank you.

Accepted answers

Geert __ 2improveIT

Hi @Ait Benhida Fatimaezzahra

Can you map "Issue Key" to "Work item Key" (it is the same)?

Julia Foden

Hi @Ait Benhida Fatimaezzahra

Confirming @Geert __ 2improveIT 's suggestion - you should be able to select 'Work item Key'. I just tested this myself because I've never used CSV import to update existing issues but it worked fine to update a custom field.

Screenshot 2026-08-18 112912.png

All comments

Geert __ 2improveIT

Hi @Ait Benhida Fatimaezzahra

Can you map "Issue Key" to "Work item Key" (it is the same)?

Julia Foden

Hi @Ait Benhida Fatimaezzahra

Screenshot 2026-08-18 112912.png

Ivan Manolov _Appfire_

Hi @Ait Benhida Fatimaezzahra,

"Work item Key" being the renamed target is the answer. Two things about this import path are worth knowing before you run it on the full file, since both fail in ways that look unrelated to the mapping.

Permission level. Importing into an existing space is documented as available to site and organization admins only, and only from the external system import screen in admin settings. Jira administrator rights on their own aren't always the same thing, so if the option set you see differs from a colleague's, that's usually why.

Custom field options. No new configuration elements can be created during the import. Statuses, work types, custom fields and, importantly for you, custom field option values all have to exist beforehand. If Domain is a select or multi-select field and your CSV contains a value that isn't already in its option list, that row won't quietly create the option, it will error out. Worth diffing the distinct values in your Domain column against the field's configured options first.

Same reasoning applies to anything else in the file: everything has to match the target space's configuration.

I'd run it on a two-row copy of the CSV first and read the migration report before doing the whole set. It's much easier to see what the import did to two work items than to unpick it across several hundred.

All the best,

Ivan

Ivan Manolov _Appfire_

@Ait Benhida Fatimaezzahra, if updating fields from a spreadsheet is a recurring job rather than a one-off, the import wizard isn't your only option.

Apps can do it in place. I'm on the team behind JXL for Jira, which gives you a grid of your work items: filter to the ones you care about, add the Domain column, then copy that column out of Excel and paste it in, exactly as you would between two spreadsheets. The items update as you paste. No key column, no mapping step, no import run to review afterwards.

Pasting values from Excel into JXL cells

Two things hold either way: the option values still have to exist on the field, because that's Jira's configuration rather than ours, and people need the ordinary edit permission on the items. What changes is that this path doesn't call for site admin rights.

Cheers,

Ivan

Ait Benhida Fatimaezzahra

Thank you so much for your response. The issue is resolved now.

Ait Benhida Fatimaezzahra

Thank you so much for your response. The issue is resolved now.

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