Link Issues in Bulk

[Stacy Kohout]

Is there a way to Bulk search and select issues to link to a single issue?  I don't see any way to bulk search & select issues, I am only able to search for and select 1 item at a time.  I see that copy/paste multiple issues 

[Jack Brickey]

Hi @Stacy Kohout , welcome to the community.

Regarding the ability to add links in bulk, the commonly accepted method without an add-on is to use the CSV export - import. There are quite a few posts in the community regarding the same question, and I encourage you to use the search bar to understand the different options that exist including add-ons. With that said, the basic concept of CSV is to write a JQL filter that produces the desired list of issues that you wish to have linked to another issue(s). Then use the icon to export to Excel, and from there, you can manually modify the epic link column and ultimately re-import those issues. This results in a bulk update of all the issues from your JQL filter.

[Stefaan Boes]

Thanks for the answer Jack.  By the time I have done the search, export and import, I am probably better off by linking tickets manually.  Especially from a service desk point of view (linking incidents to a problem), this is a substantial shortcoming of Jira.  Hope there will be a decent solution soon.

[Stacy Kohout]

Hello @Jack Brickey 

Thanks for the quick reply, I'll give this method a go!  I used the search feature but I must not have been searching the proper terminology; and not knowing that this can be done via export-import, I didn't include those terms either.  I'm excited for this, so thanks again and have a great day!

[Jack Brickey]

Hi @Stefaan Boes , what is your actual use case for linking issues? A typical use case that I have employed many times is that I have a customer facing JSM project and JSW development projects. In some instances, an issue raised in the JSM project necessitates development activities. In this scenario I will create a linked issue from the specific JSM issue to the appropriate JSW project. I leverage automation to keep the issues in sync. Is your used case different from this? Just trying to understand why you have the need to do a bulk link In hopes that there is a better less tedious solution for you.

[Stefaan Boes]

Hi @Jack Brickey , my use case is in the incident management process.  Whilst incident management is in JSM, our Problem Management project is not (jira core).  When our monitoring tool generates a lot of similar (or related) incidents, our Service Desk team needs to manually link all incidents to 1 problem (root cause analysis). There is no synchronization required.

@Stacy Kohout You need to thank Jack, he is the one who offered you a possible solution.

[Stacy Kohout]

Thanks!

[Luka Hummel - codefortynine]

Hi @Stacy Kohout and welcome to the community!

If you are willing to use a third-party app, our Advanced Bulk Edit for Jira can help you to quickly link multiple issues.

After installing the app from the Atlassian Marketplace, you can start right away. 

1. Navigate to Filters > View all issues.

2. Filter for the issues you want to edit.

3. Click on the Advanced Bulk Edit button on the top right-hand side.

[Andy Heinzer]

Just to follow up here, it's currently not possible to add links in bulk to multiple issues easily via Jira's web interface.  There is an existing feature request for this over in JRACLOUD-2428. 

While Jack's suggested method of using the CSV importer to update existing issues with these links could potentially work, there is another work-around listed in that feature request that I think might be easier to execute.  From that page:

Workaround
Create an automation rule:
1. Trigger:
Chose any type of trigger depending on your use case. If you only want to do it once, you may want to choose Scheduled trigger then run the rule manually.
2. Add Component > New Branch > Branch rule/related issues > Type of related issues > JQL:
Specify the JQL query returning the issues you need to edit.
Ensure there are no order by clauses and the issue you'll need to link to is not included in the query.
To include a list of issues, the JQL can be:
key in (key-1, key-2, key-3 etc)
3. Add Component > Action > Link Issues:
4. Publish and Run Rule.
5. Delete the rule if the issues were linked successfully.

I would suggest using automation a means to add an issue link to several issues that match a JQL query.  I hope this helps.

Andy

[Stoyan Timnev]

If I understand the question correctly, you should go to the issue that you would like to add links to and select "+":

From the modal, you should select "search for an issue":

After that, you should select the advances search so you can use JQL to filter the issues that you would like to link in bulk:

Define the query and click on search to get a list with issues that you would like to link in bulk.

The only limitation that I face is the number of issues that is displayed in the search window which for me is 10 but once you link the first batch of issues, you may exclude those already linked by updating the query with a condition like: "AND issue not in linkedIssues("ABC-123")"

[Stacy Kohout]

I appreciate the feedback!  However, the module I'm referring to is Change Management and sadly the "Search for issues" here does not have an Advanced Search area; this would be a good enhancement though.