How can I duplicate a kanban project? CSV import/export fails.

[mark.hardwick]

I'm trying to do what I think should be a very straight forward operation. Which is duplicate a Kanban project. 

I've exported a CSV file of all tickets from the Jira kanban project.

I'm then importing that same file into a new kanban project with exactly the same settings (only the project name has changed.  

I'm doing this to make a duplicate of the project (so that I can test some things that I want to try without impacting the live project).

The import fails. 

First, it can't find the users. I get messages for all users of the form: 

Issue can't be created due to the error/s [ User 'alan' does not exist. ]

It does correctly identify the users during the map fields phase of the import, it simply fails during the import itself. 

Next I get errors of the form: 
Issue 'blah' doesn't have Subtask Issue Type, its Parent Id mapping will be ignored.

There's no mapping available for subtask, although I'm assuming this refers to the data in the CSV, however I would expect the subtask to be exported by Jira if it's required in the import phase? Perhaps I'm not understanding this error at all.

I feel that the one use case that Jira CSV import / export should definitely be able to deal with is importing a Jira created export.  

Is there another way to duplicate a kanban project?

[mark.hardwick]

In case someone comes across the question, this is what I've done.  Thanks to both @John Funk and @Trudy Claspill for their input. It helped a lot.

FYI - I never got a perfect duplication and I'm not sure it's possible.  Looking at the numerous tickets and questions about CSV import/export it's clear there a many bugs with it and that, AFAICS they're not being fixed.  Such is life. 

1., export all field to CSV and open it. I used Google sheets. Then create a company wide project to import into.  Trying to import into a team project failed for me.

2. The CSV export does not contain an "Epic name" column, add this. Then set epic name to = summary if the ticket is an epic. This formula works in G-sheet: 
Epic name =IF(REGEXMATCH(Issue type cell,"Epic"),Set epic name cell,"")

so for example the value of an epic name cell might =IF(REGEXMATCH(E2,"Epic"),A2,"").  I hope that's clear. 

3. Make sure you're an admin user. 
If you try and import the CSV as a normal user, then the mappings for things like Issue type are hidden and you need to be able to access them.

4. Go to Admin -> External System Import and follow the instructions

When you come to mapping fields you need to map all users.
For me, the csv export from JIra contained users in the form "Firstname Lastname" and I had to map all of those to firstname.lastname@domainname.  If you don't do that, the users will not be found and the import will fail.

5. Save the import configuration and play with what you map to meet your needs. Saving the config saves you a lot of time.

Note, that all formatting is lost from the description.  I didn't find a way around that. 

There are also issue with ticket relationships for example it does't correctly maintain the child parent relationship, however my import was relatively small and I could deal with this by hand.  If you have a large import, you may wish to investigate more.

Good luck.

[Trudy Claspill]

Hello @mark.hardwick 

Welcome to the community.

Are you working with a Team Managed project or a Company Managed project? It will say at the bottom of the navigation pane on the left. And are the source and destination projects the same?

If they are Company Managed projects do they share the same configuration (Issue Type scheme, Field Configuration scheme, Screen scheme, Workflow scheme, etc.)?

What is the Issue Type of the issue producing the second message?

The second error has to do with trying to create parent/child links between issues in the new project based on your import data. Such links can exist between a Sub-task type of issue and its parent issue, and between an issue and its parent Epic. There are differences in how the two types of projects track this link. I have seen the message you are getting when somebody attempts to import data into a Team Managed project where the data has link data for linking an issue to its parent Epic. Unfortunately for Team Managed projects you can't create that relationship automatically during import. That is because for Team Managed project it tracks the parent/child relationship for both Sub-tasks and Epic children by recording the parent issue key in the child's "Parent" field. When the import process sees data in this field it assumes the child issue is a Sub-task type of issue. If it is not, then you get the error you see. 

The import process was originally designed when only Company Managed projects existed. In those projects, the parent/child link for Epics and their children stores the parent Epic issue key in a separate field.

This issue for Team Managed projects is tracked here:

https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JSWCLOUD-17758

[mark.hardwick]

Hi, 

Ok, they are both team managed, so I guess that's the problem. Is there any other way to duplicate a team managed kanban project?

[John Funk]

Hi Mark - Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

Are you mapping to the account id column of the user when you exported the issues?  Or just the name? If you use the account id, you should be good. 

[mark.hardwick]

Hi John,
Thanks for you help.
I exported the tickets from the issues board.  It doesn't allow me to do an account id mapping.  Where would I do that? This is what I see. I'm selecting "export excel csv". 
There are no subsequent options offered when I do.

[John Funk]

Are you doing that from the filter? Or from the dashboard? You should do it from the Filter itself. 

This is what I see - curious that you don't have the same options. 

I use the Export Excel CSV (current fields) and it always includes the account ID of all user fields, if I want them or not. 

[mark.hardwick]

Strange, perhaps it's related to it being a team project.  I'll investigate more and get back to you.

[John Funk]

Yep it is strange because I get my same results when using a team-managed project. 

Maybe try going to Filters > Advanced issue search and typing in a new search from scratch. Executue the search and then see what options you get. 

If they are the same as your old, maybe try other browser.