Problem Definition

• By design, Jira keeps a record of old issue keys when an issue is moved or a project key is changed
• When a project key is changed, Jira creates issue keys for each project key that has ever existed for the project that the issue is currently in. Example:

  • Project A, which is then renamed to B, then to C, then to D...
  • Then issue D is created with the issue key D-100.
  • Then the issue is moved to project FOO, and now has the issue key FOO-42

  The records in the "moved_issue_key" in the Jira database will contain records for A, B, C (even though the issue never was in the project at the time), i.e. it will be discoverable as A-100, B-100, C-100, D-100 and FOO-42.

• Jira allows searching of old issue keys
• This is fine, however, if a customer is using an old list of issue keys, there may be some discrepancies in the results or unintended results
• The results may be confusing or if a customer chooses to make a bulk change, then that action could have unintended results

Suggested Solution

• Allow Jira to keep a longer record of project key/issue key changes and make that data available to users in Jira
• Show the move/change history in Issue Navigator
• Show the move/change history in a field which in turn will be displayed in the JQL query results(column)

Why this is important

• When searching using JQL, it's not always clear if the returned search query contains issues that have been moved and are no longer relevant to the query
• On a side note: this discrepancy can only occur if old issue keys are explicitly referenced by the user or in an old comment/issue description, summary, custom field etc.

Workaround

• Find the "issue id" of an issue by hovering on any of the buttons on the full issue view and looking at the URL(usually displayed at the bottom of the browser), e.g. https://<instance_name>.atlassian.net/secure/EditIssue!default.jspa?id=2472909.  The "issue id" is 2472909.  Once the "issue id" has been obtained, then the JQL query can be run as so:

  issue in (2472909,2472908)
  

• Contact Jira Cloud Support for information regarding issue history