Request to duplicate column settings from an existing board to a new project board

[Norman Daryl Esponilla]

We would like to streamline our project setup process. Is it possible to copy or duplicate the column settings (statuses, swimlanes, columns, etc.) from an existing Jira board to a new board, so we don’t have to manually recreate the board configuration each time we start a new project?

This would help ensure consistency across all project boards and save time during setup. Please advise if there’s a recommended approach or if this can be automated or configured at the template level.

Thank you!

[Walter Buggenhout · Accepted solution]

Hi @Norman Daryl Esponilla and welcome to the Community!

The easiest / fastest way to do this, would be to copy an existing board (and then, possibly, update the board filter afterwards to pull in the correct data for the new board).

The question is what problem you are trying to solve here. And this may have deep impact on the way you organise your entire Jira setup.

To give you a small sneak preview: if you have teams working across multiple projects, you could consider setting up a board for the team, rather than for each project. When you add a new project for the team, rather than creating a new board, make sure the project's work appears on the existing team board. Your board layout will no longer change and work will automatically land with the correct team.

To ensure you have a consistent configuration across projects, you can choose to share project configuration with an existing project each time you create a new project. Doing so will ensure projects literally share the same work types, work flows and screens. What this approach does not include, is copying the project board. But that can either be solved by copying an existing board or using a single board to manage work across projects.

Hope this helps!

[Norman Daryl Esponilla]

Thanks for the warm welcome 😊

Got it! The quickest way is to copy an existing board and then just update the filter to show the right data. That makes sense.

Sounds like the bigger question is how we want to organize things in Jira overall. If teams are working across multiple projects, it might be better to have one team board instead of separate boards per project. That way, new work just shows up on the same board without needing to create a new one every time.

Also, sharing project configurations when setting up new projects sounds like a smart way to keep everything consistent. I’ll keep that in mind!

[Dilip · Accepted solution]

Hi @Norman Daryl Esponilla 

Please note copy existing setting will not able to copy the board column configuration, in order to achieve this you can copy the board and set the location of the copied board to new project.

[Norman Daryl Esponilla]

Thanks for the heads up.

Good to know that copying existing settings won’t carry over the board column configuration. I will go ahead and copy the board instead and set its location to the new project, that should do the trick.

Appreciate the clarification.

[Lukas Nicolai_Seibert]

Hey @Norman Daryl Esponilla welcome to the community! ☺️

If you're open to using a third-party app for your cloud instance, I think board templates could be a good alternative. 

• You can easily create board templates from existing boards and add them to projects

You can find us at the Atlassian Marketplace ➡️ https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1224664 

This is how this might look like:

[Luka Hummel - codefortynine]

Hi @Norman Daryl Esponilla and welcome to the community!

If you're looking to streamline your project setup by copying the board configurations (statuses, swimlanes, columns, etc.) from the original project, our app Deep Clone for Jira can significantly simplify this process.

With Deep Clone, you can easily clone entire Jira projects, including their boards (boards only of company-managed projects). This includes:

• Column settings
• Statuses
• Issue hierarchies (Epics, Tasks, Sub-tasks)
• Components, Versions, and more

This means you don't need to manually recreate configurations each time. You can also bulk clone up to 100,000 issues at once if you need extensive duplications, making it ideal for setting up consistent project structures across your Jira instance quickly and reliably.