Can I update issues with CSV import using an other field than the issue key?

[Jason Papadopoulos]

Hi,

I am bulk importing issues from an external system to JIRA, and once they have been created, I would like to be able to update them when needed from a CSV produced by the same source system. 
My problem is that while it has its own unique identifiers (passed along in other fields), the external source system does not know the issue keys of created issues. Therefore I am asking would it be possible to update the issues created by the CSV import using a separate field (e.g. ”External system unique ID”) to determine whether this should be an update of existing issue or create a new issue?

Thanks if you can advise!

Best regards, Jason

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Accepted solution]

No, the issue key is the only unique identifier Jira knows of.  It can't know that another field might be a unique identifier.

[Jason Papadopoulos]

But could the upload target the update using another field of the JIRA issue, regardless of whether or not it knows the field to be a unique identifier?

[Sunny Ape]

hello @Jason Papadopoulos 

The answer is still no. To update an issue, you need to reference it by its Key, as Nic has correctly advised.

The only way to achieve what you want would be to create that custom field ”External system unique ID”, or similar, in Jira to hold the unique identifier data that is coming from the source system. When you want to update Jira, you'll have to export from Jira all the issues you want to update and include that custom field and the issue's Key field. Then you can export all the data from your source, with the key identifier, then.... YOU, or some custom coding, will have to merge the two datasets together, using the key identifier as the common index.

This will give you a new, combined dataset which you can then import into Jira as CSV, using the issue Key as Jira's unique field to identify the target issues.

[Jason Papadopoulos]

Thanks!

I was also thinking of this kind of workaround in case direct update were not possible. Will look into this next.