How to import a csv file without the JIRA administrator global permission?

Vanessa Jones January 24, 2018

We need to import a csv file to load issues into a project but we do not have the JIRA administrator global permission. Is there any way to do it without it?

7 answers

1 accepted

0 votes
Answer accepted
Dave Theodore [Coyote Creek Consulting]
Community Leader
Community Leader
Community Leaders are connectors, ambassadors, and mentors. On the online community, they serve as thought leaders, product experts, and moderators.
January 24, 2018

As your friendly Jira Administrator. :) CSV import is intended to be a migration tool and not something you use on a daily basis, so that's why it's access is limited to the administrators.

You could write a script and pump the data in via the REST API, though. All you need is Browse Project and Create Issue permissions (and some scripting skilz) if you go this route.

Deleted user January 25, 2018

Not everyone can code - so yes the original poster above, and myself, use CSV import frequently to manage multiple teams.

 

I have been unable to permission users to import into projects - they have to be system admins. if that is out of date please point to a how to grant non system admins permission to import into a project.

 

At this time i want to figure out how to ask for a project level import permission to be permitted as it's very frustrating how limited import is.

Like # people like this
Dave Theodore [Coyote Creek Consulting]
Community Leader
Community Leader
Community Leaders are connectors, ambassadors, and mentors. On the online community, they serve as thought leaders, product experts, and moderators.
January 25, 2018

@[deleted], you are correct. You must be a system-admin in order to use the CSV import feature.  It's intended to be a migration tool, and not something that you use daily. This is why it requires administrative permissions.  

I'm not sure of your exact process, but we occasionally see teams that hash out their backlogs in spreadsheets and want to import those issues in to Jira easily, so they propose using the CSV input method.  If that is more-or-less what you're doing, I suggest moving the backlog creation in to Confluence.  It has an easy ability to open Jira issues from within a Confluence page. They don't call it out specifically, but modern versions of Confluence can open multiple issues with 1 click if the issues are in a table.  Essentially what you do is create a table in Confluence and add your backlog in the table, then when you highlight one cell in the table, it will see that the data comes from a table and ask if you want to open multiple issues. You then select the Project and Issue Type. It's pretty simplistic, so you may need to add additional detail to the issues once they are in Jira, but it's another alternative that doesn't require admin access.

Like # people like this
Dave Theodore [Coyote Creek Consulting]
Community Leader
Community Leader
Community Leaders are connectors, ambassadors, and mentors. On the online community, they serve as thought leaders, product experts, and moderators.
January 25, 2018

Another thing you may consider is the Ricksoft Excel Like Editor App. It's not free, but it allows you Excel like control over the Filter Results screen. It's a cool App and we have a lot of clients using it.

Deleted user January 25, 2018

@dave Theodore [Coyote Creek Consulting] Thanks however the click to create issue allows  me to only set a few fields

 

When i have a new epic, i know there is going to be at least 50 tasks and 10 stories and i roughly know what they are. I have a CSV template to start with, tweak, then import. BAM done. It sets many columns - planned quarter, assigned team, estimate hours per task, story points, this is all done in one blow - populates our epic and allows us to review the backlog and put things into sprints.

 

Confluence does not allow for that level of power multi entry, even with the multi-add option you described.

 

There is little reason that this should not be it's own permission I can assign to scrum masters who I have reviewed how to do imports with.

 

And excel is already something work has purchased, where that add-on is yet another thing we would have to pay for. It's frustrating that a feature that is there, is something i can't control, and the "fix" is to pay money.

Martin Huddleston April 18, 2018

I have similar problem so am interested in answers.  I'd be happy to just import the CSV once.   The nature of the conversation suggests that besides Confluence there might be other ways of interacting into JIRA, API's were mentioned.   Has anyone written an API with excel for JIRA, or similarly MS SQL DB  or some intermediate database that would allow the excel data to be imported for then it to be transfered via the API into JIRA?  Hopefully not a dumb question!  Can we do this in two steps is what I am asking?

 

Roadmunk allow csv imports, they also have now a Roadmunk-JIRA integration ... perhaps that is a way ahead.   Or would JIRA-Portfolio allow csv import and transfer of issues via the JIRA-Software / JIRA Portfolio interface?

4 votes
Ste
Community Leader
Community Leader
Community Leaders are connectors, ambassadors, and mentors. On the online community, they serve as thought leaders, product experts, and moderators.
January 28, 2019

There are two levels of Import on Jira - the Sys Admin settings and the user importer.

You can view the user version here: https://confluence.atlassian.com/jirasoftwareserver/creating-issues-using-the-csv-importer-939938927.html

There are some limitations which are covered via the advanced configuration options a Sys Admin has, but this should allow you to import issues under Epics, Stories, etc. For example, I just uploaded a standard set of sub-tasks under 10 stories using this non-admin function.

Ste

Simon Kälberer January 29, 2019

Hi Stephen,

 

thanks for your answer. The user importer would be very interesting for us. And I would like to test it.

Unfortunately I don't see the option Import Issues from CSV although my Importer is in version 8.0.15. And I also checked on project permissions and global permission. 


(Select Issues > Import Issues from CSV to open the Bulk Create Setup page. (If you do not have the option Import issues from CSV, your Jira Admin must update the Jira Importers plugin to version 6.2.3 or above.))

 

Do I miss something?

 

Thanks for your help.

Best regards,

Simon

Simon Kälberer January 29, 2019

I found the issue. Modules of the importer plugin have been deactivated.

Like Ste likes this
3 votes
Martin Cleaver
Rising Star
Rising Star
Rising Stars are recognized for providing high-quality answers to other users. Rising Stars receive a certificate of achievement and are on the path to becoming Community Leaders.
May 20, 2019

https://confluence.atlassian.com/jirasoftwareserver0713/creating-issues-using-the-csv-importer-965543056.html says

If you have the Create Issue project permission and the Bulk Change global permission for the relevant projects, you can create issues in bulk using a comma-separated value (CSV) file.

Doesn't say you have to be Jira administrator, or even project administrator.

Sarah Shepard May 23, 2019

This didn't work for my user.

Karen Rogalski September 6, 2019

This didn't work because that user doesn't have Bulk Change Global permission.

On our instance, we only allow our Managers and Leads to have Bulk Change Global rights. 

Ask your Jira Admin about that user's rights, they can correct that.

Like Richard Cross likes this
0 votes
RAYMOND J_ ZIENTARA January 25, 2021

I agree there should be a way to allow in an import for some users like a manager without being a system admin  We have a similar use case where we want to import from an Outlook export CSV as all the time that should be logged for meetings is already in Outlook.  Did anyone have success with the Bulk Change Global permission?

Thank you.

Stephen Wright _Elabor8_
Community Leader
Community Leader
Community Leaders are connectors, ambassadors, and mentors. On the online community, they serve as thought leaders, product experts, and moderators.
February 2, 2021

Hi @RAYMOND J_ ZIENTARA 

There is a non-Admin CSV importer - it is more restricted but will allow for imports with the appropriate permissions.

See more information on Create issues using the CSV importer

Ste

Like d_mahmuti likes this
Sarah Shepard February 4, 2021

Restricted how?

Stephen Wright _Elabor8_
Community Leader
Community Leader
Community Leaders are connectors, ambassadors, and mentors. On the online community, they serve as thought leaders, product experts, and moderators.
February 4, 2021

Hi @Sarah Shepard 

The main restriction is this is an issue creator, rather than issue updater.

But there are also some fields you cannot upload to as a user - for example, when I last used this status could not be set as you cannot transition issues during creation. The rules of creation still apply whether it is a single or bulk creation.

I would suggest uploading a CSV and mapping your fields to see what is and isn't possible :)

Ste

Like Richard Cross likes this
Sarah Shepard February 4, 2021

Ok I'll test out and report back! Thx! :)

RAYMOND J_ ZIENTARA February 4, 2021

Hi @Stephen Wright   Thank you for your reply.  However, I require an Issue Updater that allows updating Worklogs.  As I mentioned, this is an update from Outlook meetings.  It is not to create new Issues.

Sarah Shepard February 5, 2021

Didn't work.

Richard Cross September 30, 2021

@[deleted]

It would be good if Atlassian could provide definitive documentation on the restrictions/limitations of the user version of CSV import. 

We get so many support calls from frustrated users that have followed your online documentation that conflates the user version with the admin version, and therefore raised their expectations unrealistically.

Antoine [Klee Group] February 8, 2022

@Richard Cross could not say better. I do not find an exhaustive list of the limitations.

Matt Parks
Rising Star
Rising Star
Rising Stars are recognized for providing high-quality answers to other users. Rising Stars receive a certificate of achievement and are on the path to becoming Community Leaders.
May 9, 2023

Just to clarify, if using the User Importer functionality in Jira, in order to successfully update fields from the csv, those fields must exist on the Create screen of the issue that is being created. This restriction is not in place for the Admin csv import functionality.

Full Disclosure:  I'm using Jira Data Center, so I don't know if Jira Cloud works the same way.

0 votes
Ahmet Kilic _catworkx November 27, 2019

Here is the answer for your question I answered, without script or Rest Api or any plugin.

Just follows the steps.

 

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-questions/Import-issues-from-csv-without-admin-permissions/qaq-p/881746#U1238091

Shane Johnson February 4, 2021

That doesn't work at all - there is no "Import" option anywhere on the issues screen.

0 votes
Yves Furusho January 22, 2019

Hi, I have the same problem!

The lack of support for issue import is a roadblock for JIRA implementation on the company globe wise.

There are hundreds of teams and thousands of tasks (issues) and nobody is going to rewrite manually one by one their tasks to start using JIRA.

The nature of the 'create/import' issues is distributed on the teams, it is a delegated task that cannot be centralized on the administrator.

I wish you would listen to your customer instead of trying to force us to change the nature of the work.

What is going to happen is that we won't be able to implement JIRA, soon it will be discredited by managers and we will cancel the contract.

Ste
Community Leader
Community Leader
Community Leaders are connectors, ambassadors, and mentors. On the online community, they serve as thought leaders, product experts, and moderators.
January 28, 2019

Hi Yves,

I would advise if moving from another issue tracker you do consider having your admin team move the issues - there are advanced options to import from other trackers or import the data from CSV.

I've not tried importing data from many other systems - but if you were importing via CSV you could customise how much data is moved in each import, if your company are trialing Jira or migrating teams at different times. 

Otherwise, your teams could use the generic CSV importer (see my answer below), but it is more limited as it's creating new issues - not migrating them.

Jeff Parnell March 17, 2020

Hi Yves, 

I agree with everything you have already said. Jira is on thin ice with our management team already because even the most simple and relevant functionality is constantly missed or difficult to implement. The response from the team and community is always to be routed to a purchase addon or them telling us to change how we are to operate.  Beyond that, the tying of all add-ons to your full subscription list is already causing a lot of issues with our teams since management, rightly-so, doesn't understand why they need to buy 500+ licences for an add-on that provides what should be base functionality or that a few people will be using out of the whole organization. This bleeding cost approach has put jira close to the chopping block for us and with this latest inefficiency, and me going back and saying i have to build another API for a team or a work around to do a simple bulk import task will likely end the Jire experiment for us   

0 votes
Simon Kälberer August 29, 2018

I totally agree with Nicole. Our Project Manager have a similar use case and would like to import issues via CSV-Import.

 

As for now we give them adminsitration rights to do so. But that should not be a longterm solution.

Suggest an answer

Log in or Sign up to answer