https://support.atlassian.com/browse/JSP-202793 - update issue via CSV

It would be great if this feature is extended to all the components mentioned in this ticket.

Another point: if I don't specify Issue Type explicitly in the CSV, the importer will silently switch the type of any existing for which the estimate, the remaining time or worklog entries are imported, to Task (why so?! ).
I thought it should not have made any changes to existing issues unless those were explicitly requested in the incoming CSV, makes sense?

Two major issues with CSV import of worklog entries with the latest JIM plugin:

• you have to specify (and thus overwrite) the issue summary each time, otherwise the import wizard won't let you through (always asks for mapping the Summary field).
• you have to put multiple worklog entries for the same existing issue on one line, otherwise the subsequent line will override what was imported to the same issue in previous lines (the comments in the Work Log tab will remain, but not the Time Spent values).

Consider the following sample .CSV:

Summary,issue key,estimated time,Worklog,Worklog
Original Summary,PRJCODE-1829,360000,Entry 1-1;2013-01-01 12:30:10;user1;4800,Entry 1-2;2013-01-02 12:30:10;user2;4800
Original Summary2,PRJCODE-1829,363600,Entry 2-1;2013-01-03 12:30:10;user1;3600,Entry 2-2;2012-12-12 12:30:10;user2;4800

It will leave your issue PRJCODE-1829 with just the values from the second line (so a total of 2h20min in your Time Spent frame and 101h for Original Estimate for that issue), but you'll still have four comments on the Work Log tab.

Thanks Wojciech

That worked for me... God Send!!!

Darren

OK Great !
But we can only propose this features to our users if JIM is reachable from at least the Team Leaders of the projects.
See : JIM-258

An update: JIM 4.2+ supports updating existing issues - only in CSV importer.

While importing the issues you can pick a column and map it to the Issue Key. If such issues already exist in JIRA, JIM will then update it's fields with the current values (also creating Change History entries) from CSV file. In the case of "1 to many" attributes (comments, worklogs and attachments) JIM will add these items to the existing issue (instead of editing the existing entries).

Please note that full update support is not 100% complete - e.g. you cannot change the issue type or a project for an existing issue - doing so may change all the applicable fields for given issue and that is not something we support (nor do we plan to do it in the near future).

An interesting feature here is that if you specify an issue key which does not exist, then JIM will create the new issue and preserve the issue key (but the key and the project key for the issue have to match). This can be useful when you want to ensure that some issues have concrete keys in your JIRA instance (e.g. after the migration).

I am not closing this issue as done, as it currently works only for CSV. Though I would be happy to hear your thoughts whether the current CSV implementation is useful for you.

@yossi I always run the importers on a staging instance of JIRA and backup before importing.

We're currently testing CSV import to JIRA and it's quite frustrating to run the import, discover a small bug in the mapping or data, and then re-run the import which re-creates all the items.