How to stop the JIRA CSV importer from creating new users, issue types etc

[Staffan Nilsson]

We are going to start importing our old excel sheets into JIRA, and therefore I've tried out the csv importer. To my surprise, new issue types, users and other items were created automatically without any warning. As we already have a fully configured JIRA environment with everything setup, I don't want the importer to create anything new. If it needs to, it is because I've made a mistake in the csv file or the mapping.

How can I make sure that I get a warning/error message if the importer sees the need to add things to my JIRA setup?

I am afraid as it is that the JIRA setup will be corrupted by new additions by the importer.

[Staffan Nilsson · Accepted solution]

There don't seem to be a way to stop the importer from creating new issue types, user etc today (JIRA 6.1).

I have added a request for atlassian to add a possibility for the importer to warn before creating new users or issue types.

https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRA-36883?filter=-2

[Brannon Fay]

You specify a default email domain for new users when starting a CSV import. I use a unique/dummy domain so it is easy to filter these unintended new users. I can then make adjustments in my source data and easily remove these users.

[Staffan Nilsson]

Thank you, using a dummy domain may be one way to make it easier to find unintentionally imported users.

[Norman Abramovitz]

If you are using an external user management then the importer will stop and give you a list of users to create.

One of the main functions of the importer is to create new users, issues, etc. If you do not want Jira to create those things you will need to edit the CSV file and change those values.

[Staffan Nilsson]

Thank you for answering.

I will try to edit those things in the excel sheet (csv), but in a long sheet it is easy to make a mistake. I find it a major problem that I can't even get a warning message before the importer starts creating stuff.

I want to use the importer to import issues, not to add users, issue types or change any other parts of the JIRA configuration.