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CSV Import - Create "is parent of / is child of" issue links between existing issues

Ait Benhida Fatimaezzahra

Hi everyone,

I'm trying to create issue links between existing Jira issues using a CSV import in Jira Cloud.

Existing issues
Parent issue: Y-123
Child issue: X-456
The relationship I want is:

Y-123 is parent of X-456
(or equivalently)

X-456 is child of Y-123
Afficher plus de lignes
Context
I initially tried using the Parent field but discovered that both issues are of type Deliverable and Jira only allows Epics as parents in our hierarchy.

I then noticed that existing relationships in the project are displayed under Issue Links as:

is child of
is parent of

Afficher plus de lignes
rather than in the Jira Parent field.

CSV used
CSV
Issue Key,Linked Issues,Link type,Summary
X-456,Y-123,is child of,Test Summary
Afficher plus de lignes
Mapping used
Issue Key -> Issue Key
Linked Issues -> Linked Issues
Link type -> Link "Parent-Child"
Summary -> Summary
Unable to link issue ...
Unable to find imported issue key for external ID 'is child of'

Destination issue not found
No issues were created or updated.

Question
What is the correct CSV structure and field mapping to create an existing Parent-Child issue link ("is parent of / is child of") between already existing Jira issues?

Has anyone successfully imported this type of issue link in Jira Cloud?

Accepted answers

Lalithesh

Hi @Ait Benhida Fatimaezzahra

Welcome to the Atlassian community!

You can try this format

Issue Key	Linked Issue Key	Summary
Y-123	X-456

Mapping:

Issue Key -> work item key

Linked Issue key -> link"Parent-child"

Summary -> Summary. You can leave the checkbox empty

Cheers!

Martin Sturm - JXL

Hi @Ait Benhida Fatimaezzahra,

Nice work sorting this out.

In case you want to do something like this in the future without relying on CSV, and if you are open to solutions from the Atlassian Marketplace: in JXL for Jira, the app my team and I work on, work item links are simply an editable column. You can paste a column of keys straight from your spreadsheet and create the Parent-Child links across SET and SDM in one go. There is no project selection step, so nothing gets rewritten to a different prefix along the way.

Pasting issue link data from a spreadsheet into JXL

Best regards, Martin

All comments

Lalithesh

Hi @Ait Benhida Fatimaezzahra

Welcome to the Atlassian community!

You can try this format

Issue Key	Linked Issue Key	Summary
Y-123	X-456

Mapping:

Issue Key -> work item key

Linked Issue key -> link"Parent-child"

Summary -> Summary. You can leave the checkbox empty

Cheers!

Ait Benhida Fatimaezzahra

Thank you.

For the field mapping step, could you please confirm the exact Jira field mapping?

Should it be:

<span>Issue</span> <span>Key</span>        <span>-></span> <span>Issue</span> <span>Key</span>
<span>Linked</span> <span>Issue</span> <span>Key</span> <span>-></span> <span>Linked</span> <span>Issues</span>
<span>Link</span> <span>Type</span>        <span>-></span> <span>Link</span> <span>"Parent-Child"</span>

Or should the link type be mapped differently?

Lalithesh

Hi @Ait Benhida Fatimaezzahra

try the below format

<span>Issue</span> <span>Key</span>        <span>-></span> <span>work item key</span>
<span>Linked</span> <span>Issue</span> <span>Key</span> <span>-></span> <span>link"Parent-child" (your link type name)</span>
<span>Summary</span>        <span>-></span> Summary&nbsp;(Leave&nbsp;the&nbsp;checkbox&nbsp;empty)

Screenshot 2026-08-31 181723.png

I'd suggest you to create a simple test CSV with just one row and then do a bulk import based on the test run

Cheers!

Ait Benhida Fatimaezzahra

The link is now created successfully. However Jira resolves SDM-350 as SET-350.

Import log shows:

Linking 'SET-350' and 'SET-4912' as Parent-Child
while the CSV contains:

CSV

Issue Key,Linked Issue Key

SDM-350,SET-4912

Is there any limitation when importing Parent-Child links between issues from different projects?

Martin Sturm - JXL

Hi @Ait Benhida Fatimaezzahra,

Nice work sorting this out.

Pasting issue link data from a spreadsheet into JXL

Best regards, Martin

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