Creating bidirectional links ("relates to") between new, uploaded work items and existing story?

[CW]

Hello JIRA users! I am sure others are experiencing my same problem, hopefully someone has found a useful workaround or path forward, or have exhausted their options within Atlassian and can give me the bad news :)

Scenario

• I want to create new JIRA test cases
  • That link to an existing story
  • Within a single CSV upload

Problem

• I can enter in Link "Relates" ID to existing JIRA story, however new test cases do not yet have IssueId generated to link back to so upload will not validate on that field
• I could locate latest IssueID for the project and specify unused IssueIds for the test cases but I am trying to limit manual intervention since I already need a separate CSV upload to add on Zephyr schema
  
  

Ask

• Tips to correlate a test case to a story so the work item pops up under "Linked issues" during the initial upload process
• Labels are not useful since this must be a bidirectional link, so that the test cases immediately display under the story
• If all else fails, I can set up Epic Link as a correlation, but that doesn't link to the story the test case is created for actioning, I can stick with that if there's not a better way

[Hala ElRoumy · Accepted solution]

Hi there : )

In CSV import, Issue IDs are unique random numbers that are only used for mapping issues together (parent/child, issue links ..etc) and you don't need to use the actual issue IDs.

If you are going to link new issues during CSV import, you can use random unique number for example:

Summary	Issue ID	Relates
Test 1	1
Test 2	2	1

This will create 2 issues where Test 2 relates to Test 1.

To link new issues with existing ones, you can use the issue key of the existing issue, for example:

Summary	Relates
Test issue	DEV-2

This will create Test issue that relates to existing issue DEV-2.

Did I understand your question correctly? 

Thanks,
Hala ElRoumy.

[CW]

I think so, I will try that, thank you!

[CW]

@Hala ElRoumy

Validation fails for this suggestion-

Summary	Issue ID	Relates
Test 1	1	BLAH-4
Test 2	2	BLAH-4

• Issue link 'Relates' between '1' and 'BLAH-4' cannot be created - at least one of the issues couldn't be found.

If I remove Issue ID, it still fails out.

• Issue link 'Relates' between 'autoid-9207399787286291084' and 'BLAH-4' cannot be created - at least one of the issues couldn't be found.

What am I missing here?

As per instructions, at validation time an explicit Issue ID shouldn't be required, but all the errors state that an existing Issue ID is required to create relational linkage.

[CW]

OK, I took out the Issue ID and fixed up some other field mappings.

The validation error may be otherwise hidden, but triggered by other validation issues, so that's better now!