Epic templates with stories/subtasks

[Paula Kingsley]

Hi! I'm a new kid here. I'm not a Jira global admin at work, but I've done a bit of that  elsewhere, so I know enough to be dangerous. Bear that in mind.

Scenario

• We use Jira Datacenter v7.6.9 (about to upgrade to 8) and I'm interested in automating repetitive tasks as much as possible.
• My team is using Kanban, no sprints/scrum, and all issues are in a single project.
• We're using Initiatives, and each of the (small-p) projects we undertake, will involve pretty much the same boilerplate epics & stories.
• We need a way to create a template, or otherwise import/automate, so that we can quickly create new epics and all subtasks (ideally with predefined links although that's a nice-to-have). 

I know we can clone an individual epic, but ...

• The stories don't come along with it so it's pretty useless
• I don't want to do this like 12 times for each initiative
• I've never imported anything into Jira whatsoever, that I'm aware of

I know there are a lot of people looking to accomplish the first thing; I follow https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JSWSERVER-7721 with baffled amusement (and have +1'd ). 

Rather than wait for End Times or whenever this feature gets folded into the base product, here are my questions:

1. Is there a way to create epics & their stories using JSON or CSV or txt or $whatever import, and
2. Would I be able to do this as a lowly project admin or is it restricted to global admins? 
3. Can someone direct me to some really clear, dummy-level examples of the file structure if this can be done?

Thank you all very kindly,

PK

[Petter Gonçalves]

Hello Paula,

Welcome to Atlassian Community!

Answering your questions:

1 - Is there a way to create epics & their stories using JSON or CSV or txt or $whatever import

Yes, there are some options you can use to extract your issues, perform the relevant changes (change issue-keys, projects, etc) and import it back. There are two most used options to do it:

1 - Check the solution provided by cedricboivin@nm in the answer below:

- How to reduce repetitive setup for new projects in GreenHopper / JIRA

OR

2 - Export your issues using CSV, perform the necessary changes and import it back to JIRA

Using this option, you can use a spreadsheet software to open the CSV file (Excel, LibreOffice, etc) so your issue fields will be displayed in columns, so you would be able to easily find and update the relevant field (you can even automate this procedure) and import it back to your new project. 

2 - Would I be able to do this as a lowly project admin or is it restricted to global admins? 

The first option provided before requires Global administration. The second option requires project administration and the global permission Make bulk changes.

3 - Can someone direct me to some really clear, dummy-level examples of the file structure if this can be done?

For more examples on how you would configure your CSV exports (second option), you can check the documentation below:

- Import Data from CSV

Let me know if this information helps, Paula.

[Paula Kingsley]

Thank you! I'll check this out asap and reply back. 

[Paula Kingsley]

Hi ...

I checked out the CSV import option, and this appears to operate at the story/subtask level, not epic, which won't help me. I will have many epics per initiative, each containing many stories with a good number of subtasks, and need a way to create them en masse, at the epic level, with components. (Also, the link specifies that one must log in as a global admin to do a CSV import) Am I missing something there? 

The Greenhopper link doesn't look like it does this either, unless I'm missing something there as well - and it appears quite stale. 

Any other ideas? I would rather not have to go the route of a plugin (especially as it would be $$$ for datacenter licensing), and I don't know that there's a highly-rated one that will do what I want anyway. 

Thanks!

[Andrii Melnychuk]

Hey @Paula Kingsley did you manage to set it up? If so how?

[Lady Glencora]

Unfortunately no. The only way I've been able to mass-create issues in Jira and configure the links, etc., is via Smartsheet & the Smartsheet Connector. It isn't perfect either - I would call it beta quality - but it does work.  You can't leave the workflows running all the time, because it slows Jira to a crawl (this is apparently due to the way Jira itself handles webhooks...it just keeps churning away even when there are no issues being modified by the connector/JQL scope), so we use it, push items in, link them, sync once more, then disable the workflow. This is yet more third party stuff trying to fill a void that Atlassian itself really needs to deal with. Boilerplates/templates for object creation is not an unusual request and it shouldn't require a lot of arcane fussing around with exports and imports.

[Andrii Melnychuk]

Thanks for sharing.

[Mark Collins]

Has anyone tried the csv import method in three rounds? i.e. bulk import Epics, then Stories, then subtasks. This way the parentId/IssueIds are available for each subsequent bulk import.

simple example....

• Epic 1
  • Story 3 
    • subtask 6
    • subtask 7
  • Story 4
    • subtask 8
    • subtask 9
• Epic 2
  • Story 5
    • subtask 10
    • subtask 11

import 1 - Epics 1 + 2

import 2 - Stories 3+4 to Issue ID for Epic 1, and Story 5 to Issue ID for Epic 2

import 3 - subtasks 6+7 to parentID for story 3, subtasks 8+9 to parentID for story 4, subtasks 10+11 to parentID for story 5

I think this could be scripted to automate such a process and pull in the epic IssueId for the stories. And likewise the story parentId for Subtasks.

Thoughts?