Import into custom fields when importing CSV

[Linus Fallert]

In our team-managed project, we are mainly focusing on customer service. 

As customers fill out a MS Forms, it will be imported in Jira via the "CSV-Import". Lately, I felt like the overview of a task wasn't too good, so I decided to do something about it. 

So, I created a custom checkbox field, focusing on one of the questions in the MS Forms where customers can select from a list. 

Though, when I import a CSV with those answers (stored via MS Forms as: CHECKBOX1;CHECKBOX2;CHECKBOX3;....), Jira isn't able to map CHECKBOX1 to the associated field value named the same.

Is there any way to "tell" Jira to seperate after each semicolon and then map those values to the checkboxes that are named exactly the same?

Also, I noticed the delimiter to seperate fields in the CSV-file is also a semicolon, so might that be the problem?

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Accepted solution]

In the background, a check-box field is actually the same as a multi-select list, and you can populate them in the same way in your csv.

Let's say your check-box field is called "Dancer" and the possible options to tick are Badger, Mushroom and Snake.  You should form up your CSV as:

• Summary, Dancer, Dancer, Dancer
• Badgers for the win, Badger
• Mushrooms for dinner. Mushroom
• Badgers eat dinner. Mushroom, Badger
• All the things, Badger, Mushroom, Snake

The separator does not matter, as long as it is not used anywhere as part of the data.  If for example, one of the options above was Sna,ke rather than Snake, then the CSV above will be telling Jira that there are five columns to import on the last line:  All the things, Badger, Mushroom, Sna, ke.  If you don't want to change the Sna.ke to not have a comma in it, then you would either have to use a different global separator such as ;  

• All the things; Badger; Mushroom; Sna,ke

Or control the string with punctuation:

• All the things, Badger, Mushroom, "Sna,ke"

[Linus Fallert]

Thank you very much for the detailed answer! 

I will definitely try it out! 

If there's any way to get the CSV edited automatically, this will for sure be a perfect solution, otherwise I think I'll just stay with the simple text field. Setting up the CSV before every import takes a lot of time considering we will be importing a file at least once daily. 

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Editing the CSV is something you'd have to do before involving Jira, I'm not sure we can help you with that, as we don't know what edits you'd want to make.

There's one thing that would help a bit - when you first try to import a CSV file, Jira asks you some questions, which include

• What is the column separator in the file?  (Defaults to a , as that's the definition of a CSV file, but I often use ~ instead as people are very unlikely to use that in their writing)
• How do I read dates?  (As they can come in all sorts of shapes - 22/10/2021 15:42, 22nd October 2021 3:42 pm, or even the silly American format, all supported, but Jira needs to know which one is used in your file)
• What column do I import into what field?  And if the data is a selection, how do I map from the CSV value to the option in Jira?

The nice bit about this is that you have the option to save the answers in a config file.  Next time you do an import, you can give it the config file instead of answering all the questions again.

[Linus Fallert]

Thanks!

Now, my last question (I promise :P) is what's the easiest way to format the csv for an import in a dropdown field.

So, I tried importing a CSV with the tips you provided in your first answer, and it worked perfectly. The problem we're experiencing is that it takes a lot of time to set up the CSV like this. When we download the Data from MS Forms, it looks a bit like this:

• Summary, Dancer
• Badgers for the win, Badger
• Mushrooms for dinner, Mushroom
• Badgers eat dinner, Badger, Mushroom
• All the things, Badger, Mushroom, Snake

instead of:

• Summary, Dancer, Dancer, Dancer
• Badgers for the win, Badger
• Mushrooms for dinner, Mushroom
• Badgers eat dinner, Badger, Mushroom
• All the things, Badger, Mushroom, Snake

Now, editing all these cells and moving others around to create space takes at least 10 minutes per Import (usually 2-3 issues).

Is there any easier way to edit the CSV we get from MS Forms?

Thanks in advance! Your answers have really helped us out a lot to this point!

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

I don't know that there is.  Can MS Forms be told to export in the right format?  If not, then no, I'm afraid you'll need to work on something that might automate getting the format right for import.