CSV upload ignores mandatory fields and email notifications

Question

Hello Atlassian Community,

we've spent some time to establish a working possibility to create issues via csv upload. It works fine, except for a couple of issues.

1.) It seems that mandatory fields will be ignored during issue creation. Mandatory fields remain mandatory as longs as issues will be created manually. But apparently it doesn't matter if the csv file does contain any value for mandatory fields or not, issues will be created anyway.

2.) Normally the issue creator doesn't need any email notification once the issue has been created. In certain cases, e.g. issue creation via csv upload performed by Jira administrators, we're demanding such a notification. We have tried a lot of ways but: the issue creator does not receive a notification via email as long as the issue will be created via csv upload. No matter what we're doing.

We're using Jira Server 7.1.9 and any upload will be performed by Jira administrators via Admin GUI (*not* from an issue view). As there are several uploads each month, we're also using a configuration file.

Question: Is there someone who is facing the same problem(s)? Is there any way to solve one or both issues, ignored mandatory fields and missing email notification?

Any help is pretty much appreciated.

Cheers,

Johannes

Johannes Rudolf · Answer

FYI: this is the Atlassian Support's feedback.

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you.

There is a bug on the CSV Import for Administrator where it will not respect the required or mandatory setting in the Field Configuration. That bug, unfortunately, is closed as Won't fix. However, I can confirm that performing the CSV Import via the Issue Navigator will respect the Field Configuration setting if the field is set to required.

As for the email notification for the CSV import, there was a feature request previously that has been closed as Won't fix. It was an old request and I believe we can open a new suggestion for an option to send out the notification when creating the issue via CSV import. Before doing so, would it be possible for you to elaborate further on the use-case that makes this a useful feature for your company?

As a workaround to the to the notifications, you may consider adding an Automation or similar concept to trigger the notifications with a comment/update so that the reporter received the notification.

Regards,
Zul

Johannes Rudolf · Answer

Hello Alex,

many thanks for your answer. Your assumption sounds reasonable, even though we're uploading one issue each csv file. However, I will double check with Atlassian Support whether or not it is their intention.

Regards,

Johannes

Alex Christensen · Answer

I've also faced this siutation. The CSV importer does not appear to check workflow post-functions, field configurations, etc. For me, the CSV importer has always ignored mandatory fields, nor does it take into account the email notification scheme for creating issues.

My guess is that this is intended by Atlassian. A couple of reasons for my hunch:

* If you're uploading a large amount of issues via CSV, then it's probably best that an email doesn't go out for each of those created issues. That would be pretty intensive on resources. As a workaround, I would complete the upload, create a JQL query that returns all of the issues I just uploaded, then send out that query/filter as a link for users to go view those new issues.
* The CSV importer should also ignore status properties. For example, there's a status property that can prevent users from editing an issue while it's in a certain status. As an admin, you might need to do some data clean up on issues that are technically uneditable in the JIRA UI, but can be updated via a CSV import (like updating Done issues that somehow didn't get a resolution, other data cleanup, etc.).

The CSV importer is pretty flexible, so yes, it comes with some caveats you'll have to watch out for like the ones you've mentioned, but I do believe Atlassian designed it that way because of the reasons above (or that's my thoughts, at least). If you're using a configuration file and validate the data before you upload, you should be fine, really.