How do I import stories with Multiple "Acceptance Criteria" & "Definition of Done" Values

Question

Due to the number of values we have to import, and the size of our team, and our interactions, we import our stories and epics using the CSV Import.

We use two check listed fields ("Acceptance Criteria" & "Definition of Done").  Each of these usually have more than 1 value in them.

At the moment, we are over populating the "Description" field in excel, export to CSV, import to JIRA, then manually have to edit the story to assign sprint, acceptance criteria, and definition of done.

Needless to say, this is a royal pain.  I'm not addressing the idiocy of not being able to import sprint name at this time.  I'm focusing on "Acceptance Criteria" & "Definition of Done".  How can we not have to do this manual work around to import?

Thank you.

Lee

Piotr -Mederak Apps- · Answer

Hi,

this is a common pain point when the source backlog is maintained in Excel. Technically, CSV import can map values into Jira fields, but structured text such as Acceptance Criteria / Definition of Done often becomes painful when it is spread across multiple Excel columns or needs to stay readable after import.

I would separate two questions:
1. Are Acceptance Criteria and Definition of Done real Jira fields available for the target issue type?
2. Do you want them imported as separate fields, or assembled into a clean Description section?

Radha Kandimuthu · Answer

Why in jira csv import we are not able to get the field values when we try to import csv.

* Definition of Done 
* Acceptance criteria TODO

These are the two fields values im trying but the field type says TODO list custom field some addon related.. is there any specific way to get the values?

Tim Reiking_qxootj · Answer

Hi Valerie, good question.

You should be able to import multiple values into a single custom field by adding a second column to your CSV file with the same name as other column where the second column contains the value of second option.
For example:
Key,Summary,Description,Acceptance Criteria,Acceptance Criteria,Priority,etc
ABC-123,Summary,Description,OptionA,OptionB,High,etc

Then during your CSV import mapping you only have to map a single custom field. You may also need to check the box to map your value as well (if your CSV values differ from the ones in Jira).
See "Aggregating multiple values into single fields" on Importing data from CSV.

I'm also a developer with cPrime and I've found that Power Scripts has a really good feature for dealing with this issue. It is free to try for 30 days.

You can use following routines to fix update your fields if the OOTB import solution doesn't work for you.

* readFromCSVFile
* createIssue
* Updating Jira issue fields

The useful thing is with Power Scripts you don't need to know Java/ Groovy to write scripts so it's really easy to use. The script is:

struct csvInfo {
 string projectKey;
 string summary;
 string description;
 string issueType;
 string acceptanceCriteria;
 string definitionOfDone;
}

csvInfo [] fileContent = readFromCSVFile("C:/test.csv", true);
for(csvInfo i in fileContent) {
 string newTicket = createIssue(i.projectKey, "", i.issueType, i.summary);
 %newTicket%.#{Acceptance Criteria} = i.acceptanceCriteria;
 %newTicket%.#{Definition of Done} = i.definitionOfDone;
}

If you custom fields require multiple values to be set, the values can be separated by "|". Example: "OptionA|OptionB".

You will be able to run your new script from the SIL Runner Gadget from you dashboard.

Hope that helps!