Is there any way to move issues from one project to a new one retaining the issue numbers?

[Beth Mathies]

I would like to move all of my "non-done" stories to a new project for the new year .  But ... I would need to retain the issue number as people have lots of docs that tie back to that number.....  any thoughts?  

I know how to move and bulk move issues, but cannot figure out any way to keep the issue numbers.  Thought maybe there were some JQL programmers who had done this already.  

Thanks.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Accepted solution]

No, the issues will be allocated new numbers as they move. 

You could sort of do it manually, if the numbers in the new project are lower than the ones you want to keep.  Let's say you have ABC-123, 126 and 129 to move.  Insert dummy issues until you reach 122, then move in ABC-123, add two more dummies, then move ABC-126, then two more dummies, then ABC-129. Probably too clunky to be worth it.

However, Jira keeps note of the old issue key.  If a user follows a link to https://yourjira/browse/ABC-126, Jira will automatically switch to https://yourjira/browse/NEW-456 .  It will do the same in quick searches too.  This is good enough for some users.  I don't know if it's good enough for you though.

The last option is database botches, but I can't recommend them.

[Beth Mathies]

Thank you Nic!  I had a feeling we were out of luck.  Do you know what people do for the new year?  Do they just use the same project from year to year?  I would think that would get too big.  (We are talking Project being everything our team works on -- not split apart by smaller projects).

I appreciate your quick response.

Beth

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

End of year is mostly irrelevant to projects.  They end when they end.  A lot of them might have defined boundaries, where we choose to stop for some reason and then start a new project, but it's quite rare to carry over issues, and when you do, it's only a few and the renumbering isn't important.

[Beth Mathies]

Gotcha!  Just depends on your application!!  

Thanks again - Beth

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Yes, definitely depends on your processes, application and how you want to work!