Is there a way to bulk create parent-child links between existing issues?

[Tom Grant]

The title says it all. We have a backlog of existing items, and we want to create parent-child links (not epic links) between many of them. How do you do this, if it's possible?

[Tupling]

A simple way of accomplishing this is to have an issue link of Relationship with and outward link of child and inward link of is parent of. You would need your Global Admin to create this linkage in the Administration portal. Verbiage or terminology is up to you, however, this would be a descriptive way to link many to one. 

Once your admin creates this issue linking, you will be able to link issues as needed. 

To bulk edit issue you would need to ideally search for issues using a JQL string that would belong to the parent, once you have narrowed down your list to the desired issues, you can bulk edit and add the issue link. 

[Hannes Obweger - JXL for Jira]

Hi @Tom Grant,

just to add to the above, if you're looking for a more interactive bulk-editing experience, you may want to have a look at the app that my team and I are working on, JXL for Jira.

JXL is a full-fledged spreadsheet/table view for your issues that allows viewing, inline-editing, sorting, and filtering by all your issue data, much like you’d do in e.g. Excel or Google Sheets. Issue data - including issue links - can also be edited in bulk, using copy/paste. This is how it looks in action:

JXL allows updating any number of issues in one action, so you should be done with your work in no time. This also works in combination with JXL's other advanced features, such as support for (configurable) issue hierarchies, issue grouping by any issue field(s), sum-ups, or conditional formatting.

Any questions just let me know,

Best,

Hannes