Custom field type conversion - JIRA Cloud

[Doran Sheftall]

We currently have a specific identifier field on JIRA tickets as a custom field, single line text type.  We original chose this type, because there isn't a set number of possible values for this field.  We currently have over 1000 possible choices and this list grows daily.  Thus having a user add a new value to the settings for selector would be inefficient.  But we'd now like to do some additional reporting on our tickets and create some dashboards for senior members of team to monitor the work queue more effectively.

My thought is to convert this current single line text field to a label type field.  This will allow users to add new values on the fly, but also surface this field for reporting and usage in gadgets like pie charts when used in filters.

I've read some other questions and answers, but they all involved either DB edits/methods or "ScriptRunner", both options are NOT available to me, as we use JIRA cloud.

• Is it possible to simply change the custom field type from single line text to label and JIRA converts the existing text values of the field to new labels?
• If not, would it be possible for me to create a new custom field, label type.  Do a bulk edit and copy the values of the single value field to this new field?
• Else, is there any other recourse to get this done, other than manually editing thousands of tickets, most closed already 

[cgauterio]

Hi Doran,

Unfortunately, due to the restriction on Cloud environment, that's not possible. My suggestion in this case would be to get a backup of your Cloud instance, restore it on a JIRA Server, made the changes you want using the following KB article as guidance:

Changing Custom Field Types

And then restore the backup on JIRA Cloud again. Unfortunately, there's no "easy" way to achieve that in Cloud, other than moving to Server to make the necessary changes.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,

Clarissa.