Background

The import of data can be done to load your project using a CSV formatted file. In Jira the data is called Issues. A User Story is a type of Issue. This example was created to load User Stories from a CSV into a specific project.

The assumptions are:

Project has been created
Your account has edit access to that project
You have logged into Jira
You are looking at the Backlog screen for your project.

Create CSV file

This example will connect all of the user stories to one Epic call “Epic for import sample”.

Create an Excel file first

Here are some things to point out.

The double quotes in the cells that contain imbedded spaces. This is stated in the documentation.
The date format is mm/dd/yyyy. This is not required. I changed it for easy entry.

Save file as a CSV file

Remove extra double quotes

When the CSV file is created the double quotes get multiplied by three.

Open the CSV in Notepad+

Replace the three double quotes with one.

Save the file

Import CSV

Select the Issues pull down menu and then Import Issues from CSV

This will launch the Bulk Create Setup window, Browse to your CSV file and select Next

After you have done this once you can use the same configuration file for the next time. This first time we can’t check “Use an existing configuration file”.

Specify the Project and make sure the date format matches. You can change it her like: mm/dd/yyyy.

Note: Documentation said that the CSV file needed to contain Project and Project Key but it doesn’t map.

Map your fields

Select the Jira fields that your CSV columns will map to during Import.

Note the Epic Link, It must be done in this manner to establish the link to the Epic.

Validate the map

This step should be done because the Import will sometimes take place even though there are problems with the map. The problem columns/fields are just ignored.