Importing Epics and stories using csv and external system import option

[Jay Keck]

I've seen several posting about this, but none ever seem to have a definitive 'this is the way to do it', so I apologize for asking again.

I have an existing project and I have a csv of issues from another project(created from xml export on other system) that I want to import into this project. I have 2 questions:

1) how to I need to set up my columns to import epics and the stories that belong to them. They both will reside in the csv, they are not already in the project i'm importing into. I have tried 3 different ways based on other posts, and neither work:

a) I tried mapping my issue id column in the csv to issue id in jira and then putting the Epic's issue id in the epic link column of the stories belong to that epic

ID  summary Epic Name Epic Link

1    parent     MyEpic

2    story1                            1

3    story2                            1

b) I tried using Epic name as the link vs the id

ID  summary Epic Name Epic Link

1    parent     MyEpic

2    story1                            MyEpic

3    story2                            MyEpic

c) Also tried using issue key name

Issue key  ID  summary Epic Name Epic Link

    ISSUE-1 1    parent     MyEpic

    ISSUE-2 2    story1                            ISSUE-1

    ISSUE-3 3    story2                            ISSUE-1

Can someone help me out in clarifying how you do this?

2) My csv will have issue ids in it. Since I have existing issues in my project, do I run the risk of messing up issue ids of existing issues, or does jira assign new ones to issues being imported. What about when I'm using issue id to connect task/subtask or epic/story, could I link to the wrong issue if the id already exists on another issue?

Thanks for any help!

Jay

[Earl McCutcheon · Accepted solution]

Hi Jay,

You can import Epics from CSV and then provide values using Epic Name. Then in Stories later in the CSV use an Epic Link column with the name of the Epic that the Story should be part of.

Check out the following Community post that gives a breakdown and example on how to do this:

• https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-questions/How-to-import-stories-linked-to-epics-in-jira/qaq-p/373117
   A side note here, the error that some of the other users are discussing later on in the thread are related to Multiple Epics with the same name causing the conflict, but the initial example is the correct format for this, but just a point to be aware of.

Let me know if you have any additional questions.

Regards,
Earl

[Isabel Kaiser]

Hi,

How can I import the Epics from CSV and then provide the names later? When I use the import tool, I cannot match the field "Epic name" although it is a column in my csv. 

But I cannot import the epic without the epic name field:

Does anyone know what I am doing wrong here? 

I have tried the work-around of importing the epics as stories and then bulk moving them to epics, but when I do this, I end up having the same Epic name for all of the epics instead of having individual names per epic. 

Thank you!

[Melle van Keulen]

Hi @Isabel Kaiser ,

Do you have the 'Epic Name' field added to your screenscheme? 

Are you using the (admin) import? Accessible via: Settings -> System -> External System Import

/Melle

[Isabel Kaiser]

HI @Melle van Keulen 

I didn't use the admin import before. I now tried it the way you described it and it worked. 

Thanks for the advice!

[Jay Keck · Accepted solution]

Hi Earl,

I found my problem yesterday I believe. It seems that the ordering of the rows in the csv is crucial, I needed to have the epic before any of its members(my csv had different ordering than what i had in my post. I also found the mention of duplicate story names and cleaned that up as well. I can now import epics and stories all in one csv file.

Thanks!

[Earl McCutcheon]

Hi Jay, 

Thanks for the update and Good catch.

To shed some additional light on why this is occuring, the CSV is doing a sequential line by line issue creation during the import.  The Epic link is linking the child story to the parent Epic when the child issue is created so the parent must exist for the child issue to know what issue it is linking to otherwise it would be attempting to insert a NULL value to the epic link field and error out.

Regards,
Earl

[Jeanette_Viljoen]

Hi

On this note, can you have the same Epic Name in different CSV files, I am uploading several CSV files into the same Project.

Regards

Jeanette

[Earl McCutcheon]

Hi @Jeanette_Viljoen ,

If you are importing the issues in multiple parts the main factor is to make sure the Epic exists before the child issue is created, as the child issue needs an existing Epic to be present for the Epic Name to have a possible link to occur.  So if you have already created the Epic in a previous import, the Epic issue should not be added again into a follow-up import to avoid duplication.   However, if you import the Epic and Child issues in the same CSV the Epic needs to be in a row higher than the child issue that is linking to that Epic.

Regards,
Earl