Copying data from another Jira issue using automation

[Jane Ellis]

Hi there!

So, I'm trying to set up an automation that creates all of the stories that our team will need once they manually create the Epic. We've set up a "template" Epic in order to pull the stories from there. The issue that I'm running into is that I can't figure out how to pull the description from ABC-123 into the new issue that is being created. We'd basically like to copy the description that's already been written into the new story that's being created.

Is it possible to do this? I'm on Jira cloud. Thanks!

[Bill Sheboy · Accepted solution]

Hi @Jane Ellis 

Would you please provide a bit more context: is ABC-123 the trigger issue (epic), or something else?

Kind regards,
Bill

[Jane Ellis]

Hi @Bill Sheboy 

No, ABC-123 is not the trigger issue - it's a story not linked to the new issues at all.

My team is creating an epic manually, let's call that ABC-456. Once ABC-456 has been created, I have an automation set up to create the 12 issues (all stories) under it that they will need.

I'd like to copy the description from ABC-123 into the new stories that were created as children for ABC-456.

Does that make more sense?

[Bill Sheboy]

Thanks for clarifying, Jane. 

As the ABC-123 issue is unrelated to the others, it makes this a bit more challenging to solve.  The easiest way to do this is using the Lookup Issues action, with JQL to get at your ABC-123 issue.  Please add that action before you create any child stories.  And then reference the lookup in the issue create of the child stories as they are added to the epic with {{lookupIssues.first.description}}

[Jane Ellis]

@Bill Sheboy - Thank you so much! This worked beautifully! I appreciate your assistance!