Is it possible to copy/clone a project in Jira Work Management?

[David Barnes]

Hello,

I was hoping to find somewhat of a straightforward way to clone/copy a Jira Work Management project so I do not have to create every column and card every time a new project is created. Why this is not included as an option, I will never know. Seems like a severe oversight.

Essentially, I have created a Jira Work Management project as a template and would like to be able to copy this for a certain type of project over and over again.

I see that there is an "automation" option, but I can't even begin to know where to start with that. Doesn't seem like there is a way to do this through the provided automation options.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

[Jerryton Surya · Accepted solution]

Hi @David Barnes 

Welcome to the community, you can use this code to copy/clone your existing Jira work management project. let me know if this works for you 

from jira import JIRA

# Set up the Jira API client
jira_url = 'https://your-jira-instance.atlassian.net'
jira_username = 'your-jira-username'
jira_password = 'your-jira-api-token'
jira = JIRA(server=jira_url, basic_auth=(jira_username, jira_password))

# Retrieve the configuration of the template project
template_project_key = 'TEMPLATE'
template_project = jira.project(template_project_key)

# Create a new project based on the template
new_project_name = 'New Project Name'
new_project_key = 'NEW'
new_project_type = 'business' # Change this as needed
new_project_template = {'projectTemplateKey': template_project_key}
new_project = jira.create_project(
key=new_project_key,
name=new_project_name,
projectTypeKey=new_project_type,
templateKey=new_project_template
)

print(f'Created new project {new_project.key}: {new_project.name}')

you would need to replace your-jira-instance.atlassian.net, your-jira-username, and your-jira-api-token with your own Jira instance URL, username, and API token. You would also need to replace TEMPLATE with the key of the project you want to use as a template, and NEW and New Project Name with the key and name of the new project you want to create.

[David Barnes]

Jerryton,

Thank you so much for the reply.

Where do I navigate to in order to import/run this code?

[Jerryton Surya]

You will need to have a Python development environment installed on your local machine, such as PyCharm or Visual Studio Code. You will also need to have the Jira Python library installed.

Once you have your development environment set up, you can create a new Python file and paste the code into it. Make sure to replace the values for jira_url, jira_username, jira_password, template_project_key, new_project_key, and new_project_name with the appropriate values for your Jira instance and the project you want to create.

Save the file and run it from your development environment. The code will connect to your Jira instance using the specified credentials, retrieve the configuration of the template project, and create a new project based on that configuration.

[Luka Hummel - codefortynine]

Hi @David Barnes

If you prefer a simpler solution than the ones provided by the previous answers you can also use our Deep Clone for Jira app to clone your projects as often as you want. Deep Clone is great for cloning your templates and my colleague @Marlene Kegel - codefortynine even wrote a great community post detailing that use case.

You can read more on how this works with the app here.

[Trudy Claspill]

Hello @David Barnes 

Welcome to the Atlassian community!

Did you create a Team Managed or a Company Managed Work Management project? That information will show at the bottom of the navigation panel on the left.

If you created a Company Managed project, then when you create a new Work Management project you can elect to share the configuration of your template project. 

(The option is disabled for me because I am on the Free plan.)

That will result in the new project have the same fields, screens, and workflows as the template project. It does NOT copy the issues in the project.

You could use Automation to copy the issues.

Another option is to export the issues to a CSV file and then import that CSV file into your new project to create the issues in the new project. More information about creating issues by importing a CSV file can be found here.

Another option is to look at third party apps. I've seen many post suggesting the use of Deep Clone for copying projects. I have never used it myself.

[David Barnes]

Trudy,

Thank you for that information. I will look into this. I'm unsure why Jira is so difficult to use for simple project/workflow management...sort of defeats the purpose. We may just not use Jira at all and use Trello instead.

Thanks!