Bulk edit select list item selection without losing other selections?

[NathanG]

I have a custom field that has a select list of numerous items. Many people have been selecting the wrong item and I've narrowed down the affected issues in a filter.

How can I bulk edit these issues, deselecting one of my items in the select list and selecting another item?

Every time I try to bulk edit, it seems to be blowing away all the other choices in the select list. I want to KEEP my other choices in the select list and only change these two items.

Thank you!

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Accepted solution]

There's no easy solution for this problem - bulk edit is a simple, flat replacement of current contents.

All you can do (if you're going to do this by hand), is search for unique groups of desired values, and bulk edit those to the correct values. I mean, if you've got A, B and C as options, and you want to end up with some issues with A, and some with B, and some with AB, then you need to search for "all that should only be A" and bulk edit them to A, repeat for B, then repeat for AB

Another option though - do you still need that "wrong item" at all? If you delete the option completely, then Jira will drop it off all the issues it's on, without affecting the rest. (Obviously, no help if you still need it)

[NathanG]

As a follow up, I realized that I have a few options with select items:

1. I can rename items in the select list
2. I can disable items in the select list
3. I can remove/delete items in the select list

I realized that many of my items area already "tagged" to the wrong select item, but they are all "tagged" together... so, what I did was just delete the correct select item, then rename the wrong item to now be the "right" item, and then re-create the "wrong" item so it could be selected in the future.

This worked because there were VERY VERY FEW issues "tagged" with the wrong select item... so that allowed me to delete it in the first place (since it was easy to just change the very few issues that were using it).

Nic: your post helped me arrive at this solution. THANK YOU!

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

I'm glad I included the "do you still need the wrong items" comment now! :-)