CSV import - Status field

[Kristine Williams]

I'm trying to leverage import csv feature in JIRA, which is great, but from what I can see, although "Status" is in CSV Field column, we are not able to map that to "status" in JIRA field that must be populated. This seems like a pretty big issue for heavy users of JIRA since status is a key field.  I'm hoping someone can help me map this field.  If this is not possible, can someone tell me if this is an pending fix to the software?  

[Dario B · Accepted solution]

Hello @Kristine Williams and @Nic Brough -Adaptavist- ,

Please notice that there are 2 different ways to import issues from CSV:

1. Only available to Jira administrators from Jira Administration -> External System Import. In here all the statuses are available to be mapped.
   • Documentation page: Importing data from CSV
2. Available to non admin users as well from: Filters -> Advanced Issue Search -> ... -> Import Issues from CSV. In here you can only map a sub-set of fields.
   • Documentation page: Create issues with the CSV importer

Now, I have checked the fields that can be mapped when using method #2 and Status is indeed not present in there. 

@Kristine Williams can you kindly confirm this is the case? Also, can you confirm you are able to map the issue status if use External System Import instead? 

Cheers,
Dario

[Robert Horan]

@Dario B - thank you for this.  It would be great if this were made explicitly clear in the documentation.  In the absence of a clearly written statement in the documentation, like what you wrote above, I think many, including myself, have found this somewhat confusing.

With that said, I am hoping you might know of some workaround that would allow non-admins to import issues with various statuses mapped, without requiring them to go through a time-consuming series of bulk changes.

[Annelotte]

Is there a feature / enhancement request open somewhere to allow non-admins to import a csv with the status? Since that is a pretty basic field to import, and it was available in the server version..

[Balaji Sankar]

Hi @Annelotte

User have to check with the Project Permission Scheme, is the user is associated with "View Read-Only Workflow" as project role or user group. if user associated with this function, then the user could not able to see a Status on CSV import.

Thanks & Regards

Balaji Sankar

[William Paikin]

Thank you everyone. There are 2 ways to reach the External System Import. Only 1 of them works for importing Status

As an Administrator go to the settings option in the top right hand corner of your screen.

Select "System"

Then select "External System Import"

Then Select CSB.

Status WILL be an option from the drop down.

The confusion above came from "being and admin" and going through the settings as an admin. It was also confusing because both methods are called External System Imports.

Regardless, I was no able to do it. Thank you everyone from the assistance, and apologies for my confusion.

[Octavian Stepan]

Hi,  I have an issue with migrating a ticket from external source to JIRA via CVS.
The statuses were exported fine but the user that changed from a status to another is the person that migrate the ticket. This is not good. How I could make, to have in history, the real history of the ticket, to see when status was changed, date when status was changed, person who  change the status?
Thank you

[Ryan McBryde]

I don't know if this has been solved yet but I was having this same problem when importing the results of a spreadsheet exported into a csv file and then trying to import that csv file into a project in Jira cloud.  For some reason it would not show that field Status under the Issue field heading.  The only fields that would show up when searching for the word Status were the Epic Status and the Startup Status.  I decided to test with a very simple example csv file that simply had Summary Assignee, Description, and Status as fields  with only one line of input after the header line with the fields.  When I did that the Status field appeared under the Issue Fields header just as expected.  This indicated that the problem was not with the import mechanism but possibly with the csv file to be imported.  When I re-examined the csv file I found that the first problem is that the header line had 2 columns that had the name of Status.  The second problem I believe was that many of the text fields were not surrounded by quotes, " , which meant that some of them could have contained embedded commas which would throw the import off.  I tested by copying the first few lines of the original csv file into a new one and removed the extra Status column and then made sure that each of the text fields were enclosed in double quotes.  When I imported this new file, the mapping page showed that the Status field was found under the Issue Fields header and the status were able to be mapped and imported successfully.  I  am not sure if this is the cause of some of the other reported issues but it appears likely that if the Status field is not showing up on the mapping page as expected that one of the culprits could be an improperly formatted csv import file.  This assumes that the user performing the import has Admin privileges and can perform the Import External Files action.

[shashank]

I'm also facing the same issue. Not able to see Status jira field while import CSV.

[Yves Tellier]

Same issue for me and I have Project Administrator right, not System Admin.

I have updated the import file as per Fazal's comment but it doesn't for me: status does still not appear in the fields I can map to

[Robert Horan]

This is because a Project Admin does not have the ability to perform this kind of import - only a full Jira admin can do so.

There are limits to what you can import without full Jira admin rights.

[Yves Tellier]

Hi Robert,

Thanks for your prompt answer: I'm currently working on a project in which I have to refresh dates based on data imported from another system: is there another solution than requesting Admin rights (which I won't likely get) to refresh dates based on external data?

Thanks

[Robert Horan]

I'm not sure of what you mean by refresh dates.  Are these issues which already exist in Jira and you want to overlay them with new data for some fields?

[Yves Tellier]

Hi Robert,

Sorry for not being clear.

The plan is to export data from a source system in CSV files and import them into JIRA. 

For new activities, that's fine: tasks and sub-tasks are created in JIRA.

As dates keep changing in the source system, I would like to schedule extracts from the source system into CSV files that I would import in JIRA to update existing tasks and sub-tasks in JIRA. I read this is feasible with Admin Right, which I don't have and unlikely to have.

I'm looking for an alternative that wouldn't require Admin Right

[Dario B]

Hi @Yves Tellier ,

I don't know what is the other external system you are using, but in your case it looks like an integration would be the way to go.

Check if the other system you are using is providing webhooks and apis to integrate. Then you might be able to configure it in a way that every time an activity is updated in the source system the corrispettive Jira issue is updated as well.

Cheers,
Dario

[fazal Azeem]

Just follow 2 simple steps, using the administrators import from system:

1. Upload the csv without using configuration file.

2. Download the configuration file, modify it as shown below and then re-upload the data using the configuration file.

Replace the following custom field with the JIRA field:

"Status" : {

"existing.custom.field" : "19005"

},

After replacing, the field looks like this

"Status" : {
"jira.field" : "status"
},

Now upload the data and status will change to what ever your want. either Closed, Resolved or In Process, as defined in the CSV.

[Vincent TEPLITXKY]

Hi fazal,

Couldn't get this to work, I'd appreciate if you explained in greater detail how you did it. Thanks.

[Deleted user]

Hello,

I'm having the same issue when I try to do the import via the Issues menu --> Import issues from CSV. I cannot use the External Import because I'm not a Jira admin.

 

Is there any particular reason for this limitation? Are there any workarounds available that don't require the intervention of a Jira admin?

Many thanks!
Best wishes!

[Leo Lardizabal Seril]

Hi, I am also encountering the same issue as the original reporter of this issue.  I cannot find the "Status" field when trying to import a CSV file. I am pretty sure this was available in the past and judging by the date this issue was logged, it looks like it only started recently.

Initially I thought there was a problem with my issue screen layout, but I tried comparing with other projects where I have done CSV imports before and I could not select the Status field anymore.

[Leo Lardizabal Seril]

When I tried using the Import Wizard (since I have Admin access). I can see the "Status".  In the past, I only used the normal Import from CSV function, I was not even aware that there was an import wizard for Administrators only.

[Dario B]

Hi @Leo Lardizabal Seril ,

Did you have any chance to read my answer (the one at the top of this thread) in which I explain that there are 2 different ways to import from CSV and the status field is only available in one of them? 

Please notice that there are 2 different ways to import issues from CSV:

1. Only available to Jira administrators from Jira Administration -> External System Import. In here all the statuses are available to be mapped.
   • Documentation page: Importing data from CSV
2. Available to non admin users as well from: Filters -> Advanced Issue Search -> ... -> Import Issues from CSV. In here you can only map a sub-set of fields.
   • Documentation page: Create issues with the CSV importer

Now, I have checked the fields that can be mapped when using method #2 and Status is indeed not present in there. 

Cheers,
Dario

[Leo Lardizabal Seril]

Hi @Dario B , Yes it was from your answer that I found out about the 2 different ways to import. 

What I am saying though is that in the past, I think I was only using the non-admin method (#2) and could still import Status, but now it seems that I need to use my admin access to do this. 

I could be wrong but I wanted to know if Status was previously present in the non-admin import method, and was only recently removed.

[Kristine Williams]

Hey there folks.... was just trying to work through the challenge - sorry things have turned somewhat ugly.  Not what I would expect from a professional community like this.  I'll defer to some other groups for support at this point, but thanks for trying to assist. 

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

@Kristine Williams  - you have nothing to say sorry for. 

You've asked a perfectly good question about something that seems to be broken, and given us lots of information to try to help us work out what it might be and hence head towards a fix.

The conversation has been de-railed by what I'm hoping is just a misunderstaning.  Frankly, I'd like to ignore that, move on, and get you a proper solution.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

What do you mean by "can not map the status"?

You're absolutely right that this is a critical item (it's not technically a field, but that's not important here).  You need to give it a status, unless you are in the one place where it's ok for every imported issue to go into new/open/to-do - whatever "create issue" would do if you typed each issue in manually.

As I get a status I can map when I import from csv, I don't know what you are seeing.  What is stopping you from doing that mapping?

[Kristine Williams]

"Status" is not in the "JIRA Field" drop down box as an option, so I can't map it, from what I can see......

[Kristine Williams]

Is there any chance I can share screen shot of some sort of live view with you?  

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

You should have a little camera-like icon for attaching images here.  Feel free to show us anything you feel is appropriate (and blur out data you think may be sensitive - we only need to see stuff like where you are and what the drop-down lists look like when you're trying to define a mapping)

[Kristine Williams]

this is what I'm seeing...."status" is a csv field that you can export from JIRA, but it is not available in the dropdown under "JIRA Field" so that it will map.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

I wish more people gave us really clear screenshots like that when we ask!

On the status line, what do you get when you click on "don't map this field" next to it?  I get a list of possible fields (the first 15-ish of which I recognise as "system fields", including Status, and the rest an alphabetically sorted list of custom fields)

[Kristine Williams]

In the dropdown, all I get is a number of options under "custom fields", options under 
"jira fields", and options under "links & sub tasks.  One of the items under "custom fields" is "states".  Is that a typo and it should say "Status"?

[Kristine Williams]

We are an insurance company that does business in various states, so I initially thought "states" was a legitimate field, but now I'm wondering if it's a defect/error in the JIRA dropdown.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

It's not an error, the way it has been set up for you seems to be over-complicated and complex.

The heart of Jira is that it is a tracker with a workflow engine.  Issues need to know where they are in their flow, which is the status.

There is nothing wrong with your Jira, but you may have a problem with your "states". 

Your import mappings do not seem to include the state you need though.

[Kristine Williams]

So you are saying that JIRA was modified/customized for AMFAM?  I can check with the team here that has worked on bringing the Atlassian tools into our organization, but it doesn't make sense that we would have "states" be in the dropdown instead of "status", which is why I asked if it is a typo in the software. 

So how do we map the Status field from csv export to Status field in JIRA import, I don't have "status" as a dropdown option?  Can I even do it, or is the answer "there is no way to import updates to the status field". 

[Kristine Williams]

Again, just want to understand why csv field for Status doesn't map to JIRA field for Status.  Seems very odd.  are you saying that AMFAM has had customization of the software and that is why the csv field doesn't map back to the JIRA field?  

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

I am sorry, I've just noticed I missed something.

In your screenshot, you show us only part of the dropdown - could you scroll to the top?  In most cases the "system" fields are listed before custom ones.

[Kristine Williams]

we only have "custom fields", "jira fields", "links & sub tasks" with various options under each.  None of them have "status" as a  JIRA field option, to use for mapping csv field.  I would really appreciate someone being able to talk through this with me, since it would only take 2 minutes to explain the issue.  

[Kristine Williams]

[Debra Anderson]

I am having the exact same problem, can't map status 

[Kristine Williams]

Nic - any further input on this issue?  Is there someone else I could connect with on this?  It seems like "status" should be in the drop down options under JIRA field so we can map status from the csv back into JIRA via the import process.  This is of value because users may have situations where they would like to do a mass update of work that was kicked off (moved to in-progress), completed or some other status.  

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

What happens if you type status into the field?   You should see the drop-down below it narrowing down a search as you type

[Kristine Williams]

Nothing happens if you type status into the field.  Status is not an option within the dropdown.  

[Kristine Williams]

I'm not sure how else to state the problem.  Does Atlassian have a support line that allows us to connect with someone and do screen sharing via zoom or something?  This is really a very straight forward issue - simple to show someone.  I'm not saying the fix of the issue is simple, but the issue itself is very straightforward.  Once again - We need to have "status" as an option in the dropdown field for "JIRA Field" so that we can map status from csv back into JIRA during import process.  

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Can you show us a screen shot of the drop-down when you've just typed S into it, then st, then sta ?

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Sorry to be a pain, but I can't replicate "not there" and Atlassian support would ask you the same.

[Kristine Williams]

One of my earlier screen shots shows that "status" is not in the drop down as an option that we can select.  "states" is there, but not "status".  Thus by question about is that a typo.  

I will try to connect with Atlassian support on this.  

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

The problem is that your screenshots only show part of the list.  I'm trying to get to see all of it, because all three systems I've tried to replicate this on (including one that has "states" as a field) eventually list Status as I narrow down their selections by typing.

It is possible that someone may have done something horrid like renaming states, but as you're on Cloud, that is extremely unlikely, and you'd also see "states" represented in filters, project reports, field headers and so-on

[Kristine Williams]

Hi Nic,

Can you tell me the part of the screen shot you're not seeing?  It looks to me like all the core pieces of the screen that are of concern are showing in the screenshot - CSV Field, JIRA Field and Map Field Value. 

I'll be circling back with an internal American Family Insurance user group this week to try and get some help/ask questions to see if others have input on this or can help. 

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

The drop-down list you get when you're trying to choose a field to map to.  I'm trying to see all of it.

In this image, you can see the drop-down only has a fragment of the options, as there's a scroll bar to the right:

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

And then when I type "sta" into the entry box, the list becomes short enough for me to see the whole lot:

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

@TRI'm sorry you feel that you only get "baseless arrogance and bluster"

I've tried to explain what I am asking for and why.  It's not because I think there is something wrong with what @Kristine Williams  is telling us they are seeing, it is because I am frustrated that I cannot replicate it on my own systems, but I am not seeing everything that I would need to.

As for "standard support will get you a real answer".  Yes, they will.  But they're going to start by asking for what I am too - start with a demo of why typing "sta" into the field fails to show Status.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

@TR  - I, again, have to apologise that you are really very much failing to understand what the community is for.  We're trying to help.  In this case, I'm also very very curious as to what is going wrong.

Your "Nah; you're not. Ive lurked on these boards for years - if I could block you, I would." followed up by a more positive edit suggests that you don't really grasp what community is for. 

And, a few years ago, a grumpier and less tolerant version of me would reach for the abuse/spam/troll options on the basis of unexplained insults if nothing else.

Could you explain your thinking here?  Is it really a good thing to insult people who are trying to help?

[jgonzalves]

Is there an update anyone can share? What is the name of the field in JIRA I can map"status" to? 

[Dario B]

Hello @jgonzalves ,

Please notice your question has already been answered twice in this same thread:

• https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-questions/Re-CSV-import-Status-field/qaq-p/1426015/comment-id/434015#M434015
• https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-questions/Re-Re-CSV-import-Status-field/qaq-p/1449573/comment-id/438498#M438498

In short: there are 2 different ways to import from CSV and the status field is only available in one of them. Make sure you are using the correct one:

Please notice that there are 2 different ways to import issues from CSV:

1. Only available to Jira administrators from Jira Administration -> External System Import. In here all the statuses are available to be mapped.
   • Documentation page: Importing data from CSV
2. Available to non admin users as well from: Filters -> Advanced Issue Search -> ... -> Import Issues from CSV. In here you can only map a sub-set of fields.
   • Documentation page: Create issues with the CSV importer

Now, I have checked the fields that can be mapped when using method #2 and Status is indeed not present in there. 

Cheers,
Dario

[William Paikin]

Maybe the issues if the first part of what you are saying. When you say JIRA Administration > External Systems, do you mean as a JIRA Administrator, or is there a specific screen that you need to navigate to before going to the issue screen? 

I have been using JIRA for years, but never done a bulk import. I am having the same issue . I exported from JIRA. Updated the CSV and am using that file to upload. 

There must be a simple step we are all missing. Pls continue to assist.

Thank you so much.

[William Paikin]

Is this available on all plan?

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Yes you have to be an admin to use the import from external system, and yes, you can do it on any plan.

[William Paikin]

Then I am still at a loss why "Status" is not an option from the dropdown menu to map the field.

[William Paikin]

Settings > System > External System Import > CSV.

Going through the Issues option from the left hand side does not work.

You need to select the settings gear icon from the top right of the screen.

then Navigate to System. External System Import will be an option on the left menu bar.

From here follow the CSV process and "Status" will be an option from the drop down.