What happens to Priority on existing issues if we alter the Priority list mid-project?

[Douglas Fisher]

• What happens to the Priority on an existing issue in an existing Priority if I delete the Priority?
  • Does it retain the old priority?
  • Does it have no priority?
• What happens to the Priority on an existing issue in an existing Priority if I rename the Priority?
  • Does it retain the old priority name?
  • Does it show the new Priority name?
• Do I need to do a Bulk Edit Operation?
• The Bulk Edit Operation seems to only allow me to choose from existing Priorities.
  • The same is true of Search.
  • If this is true, how can I accomplish a migration from an old Priority to a new one?
  • Or from a deleted Priority to a new one?
  • Could I or should I migrate out to a temporary Custom Field and back again?

[Danielle Zhu · Accepted solution]

When you delete a priority, JIRA will prompt you to select the new priority (from the list of existing priorities) for issues that match the priority you are trying to delete. It will then update all issues to the new priority and delete the old priority.

If you want to update issues to a brand new priority, you will have to add that priority first.

Yes, you can use Bulk Edit too to update existing priority to the new one for selected issues. Add the new priority first if it's not already in the priority list.

Renaming is straightforward. Issues will show the new priority name after the rename.

[Douglas Fisher]

Many thanks!

[Andrew Frayling]

Hi Douglas,

I've just tested this on my dev system running JIRA 4.4.1 and:

if you delete a priority it asks you which (existing) priority you now want to use for all the issues that had the priority you just deleted and bulk updates them.

If you rename a priority any issues that had the old priority name will now have the new priority name.

I would add the new priorities and run a set of bulk updates - after taking a backup of everything first though in case it goes wrong.

Hope that helps,

Andrew.

[Douglas Fisher]

Many thanks!