How to create Jira issues from Excel file?

[#1]

When to use CSV importer

When managing your processes in Jira, there are many occasions where you need to create a lot of tasks. Creating them one by one will cost you a lot of time and effort and is not necessary. If you learn using CSV importer, the time needed to create/update even hundreds or thousands of tasks will not take long.

Step 1: Prepare an Excel file

The Excel file needs to be properly formatted for importing data into Jira.

There are a couple of things important to notice

1. Issue types that I am going to import depend on the project configuration where you want to import tasks. In my template, I have issue types Epic and Task. Unless you have them configured in Jira project, you will not be able to import these tasks.

2. Just like the column name Issue Type, other column names also correspond to field names in Jira

3. Epic names of Epics need to be exactly the same in the Epic Link column for tasks

4. In the Summary column is the title of your issue/task in Jira

5. Before importing Priority column data, check your configuration what your Priority names are.

6. The content of the Assignee column depends on your user naming convention.

7. Description field which is optional 

You can download this example file from this GoogleDrive location.

Step 2: Save as CSV file

Save the file as CSV UTF-8. This is important to select UTF-8 character coding to avoid problem later, especially when you use other language than English.
This is the CSV plain file opened in Notepad++. This is how Jira importer will ‘see it’

Notice, that in columns where there is no data, you still need commas there.

Step 3: Use the CSV Importer

Now go to Jira Administration / System tab / External system import and click the CSV button.

Step 4: See more examples

Update

See more practical examples in my blog article here: https://jlabnotes.com/jira-issues-import-excel-examples/

If you want to see detailed instructions on how to import CSV file in Jira, please watch my detailed tutorial on YouTube.

I hope you found this article interesting and you have learnt something from it.

Please leave a comment below.

[vlad.puhach]

Thanks @Bogdan Gorka

Very useful article. It happened to me few times, when I thought it would be great to have an easier way to create tons of tasks.

[Bridget]

Great Article, Bogdan!!

[Taranjeet Singh]

Great article, @Bogdan Gorka ! JIRA CSV import is a very useful feature and I have used it a lot in my work.

[Jennifer Mun]

@Bogdan Gorka - do you know if there's way to import in linked issues? I understand this may not be a common use case, but checking for a client. Thank you.

[Phill Fox]

@Jennifer Mun you can link issues using CSV see the documentation at 

If the issue already exists at the time of importing with the CSV you add a column referencing the type of issue link required and then reference the existing issue by the issue key in that column (empty columns will not have any issue linked). 

However, suppose you want to create links between items that you are importing? In this case you need to create a second CSV with the linkings. Remember you only need a minimal set of fields to do a CSV import and if you include an issue key then this will update rather than create a new issue (assuming the issue key is valid of course). 

So a typical link CSV looks like....

Key, Summary, Blocked, Dependent on

ABC-12,,ABC-11,

ABC-13,,,ABC-11

Things to note here are the empty string for summary which means leave it as it is but is a required field. 

This will then create 2 issuelinks

ABC-12 Blocked by ABC-11

ABC 13 Dependent on ABC-11

[Bogdan Gorka]

@Jennifer Mun if you need more explanation on how to import issue links, there is a Knowledge Base article about it here: https://confluence.atlassian.com/jirakb/import-issue-links-from-a-csv-file-in-jira-server-740262715.html

[Damian_E]

Good afternoon, I need in jira to create a validation where I can add text in comments. Eg .. before executing something that gives me a warning .. In the comment, the text that you have loaded must appear. when pressing a button called unfold manual that this warning appears and in a text comment, for example, are you sure?

[Jan Dewald]

This is excellent. Thank you for sharing!

[Olivier Michel]

Great solution for stand alone projects where you gather the information first. Thanks for this

What about flipping this around? Exporting existing tickets to CSV/Excel to perhaps showcase specific tasks, epics, support types etc?

[Valentina_S]

Thanks for Info

[Katelyn Botts]

Is this only for classic projects?

[arlei]

Im trying to import a file, but I got the follow error:

Importing: Issues
2020-07-15 13:36:30,003 INFO - ------------------------------
2020-07-15 13:36:30,003 INFO - Only new items will be imported
2020-07-15 13:36:30,017 INFO - Importing issue: [externalId='autoid--4296138607272068671', summary='Test issue']
2020-07-15 13:36:30,158 INFO - Created IssueType : 1 with id 10077
2020-07-15 13:36:30,214 INFO - ------------------------------
2020-07-15 13:36:30,214 INFO - Finished Importing : Issues
2020-07-15 13:36:30,214 INFO - ------------------------------
2020-07-15 13:36:30,215 ERROR - Unexpected failure occurred. Importer will stop immediately. Data may be in an unstable state: 

 I tryed to find inside the Jira protect, the informations that I imported I can't find it. This example is a next gen project. When I tryed to import with a classic project, it works fine.

[Bogdan Gorka]

This article is written for and tested on the Server version of Jira. 

I suggest you describe your use case using the 'Ask the community'  and then 'Ask a question' placing it in the Jira Software Cloud section. Then, someone who is experienced with the NextGen version of Jira (maybe) will be able to help you and you will get the support you expect.

[Katelyn Botts]

@Bogdan Gorka - is the above example for solely Classic projects? Are the steps the same for Next Gen projects?

[Michael Werner]

This is good to know. In my version of Excel (2016) there is no option CSV-UTF8.

[Deleted user]

very interesting, but in the case of this choice, what should be done to correctly map the resolution status and the workflow status? @Bogdan Gorka 
it seems that the field for the workflow status is not natively present on Jira

[Bogdan Gorka]

There is no need to import Status Category.

This system field is set up automatically when you import issues with their statuses.

Each status must be associated with one Status Category during configuration. See more about it in Defining status field values 

Status category is mainly used in JQL queries when you want to group them by type and not by specific name. For example, you can run a query to select all issue types with statuses Open, New, To Do, Waiting etc. with StatusCategory = "To Do"

[Bogdan Gorka]

@Michael Werner I also use the latest version of Excel in Office 365 and I use CSV UTF-8 format

See the screenshot

[Bogdan Gorka]

@Katelyn Botts I have not tested the procedure on Jira Cloud next gen projects.

However, based on this detailed documentation about CSV data import, there is no differentiation between classic and next gen projects so it should work in both cases.

[Michael Werner]

@Bogdan Gorka That's interesting. I have Excel 2016 and there is no such option. Only csv, without UTF-8.
Should I have the need for this import, I will give that a try.

Thanks,

Michael

[Bogdan Gorka]

@Michael Werner I must admit that it is surprising.

When I worked in the older version of Excel, I exported the file to CSV from Excel and then I would use the Notepad++ to convert it to UTF-8. Only then special characters and language specific characters are properly encoded in Jira

[Michael Werner]

@Bogdan Gorka There is always something when working with different versions of a program. I write in English, so UTF-8 may not be an issue at all. Otherwise, I will convert the csv file using my text editor. Thanks for that hint.

[serkan_sezer]

Hi, @Bogdan Gorka 

thank you for this information. I have a question. My project has got cascadeOption. How can we use the "cascadeOption" custom field? 

thank you

[Michael Werner]

Quick question: Is this a plugin or is this standard Jira? We are using Jira Server on premise.

Thanks,

Michael

[Bogdan Gorka]

@Michael Werner this is a standard Jira functionality

https://confluence.atlassian.com/jirakb/import-issue-links-from-a-csv-file-in-jira-server-740262715.html