How to convert drop down field to text field

[Geethanjali S J]

Hi Everyone,

We have one custom field called select list single Choice.

We need to convert that field to text field.

Can anyone help me to do that.

Thanks,

Geethanjali.

[padraik]

You cannot convert an existing drop down field to a text field, but hope is not lost.  @Mayur Ramesh Jadhav  provided these excellent steps to solve your issue in this thread.

Migrating Custom Field content to another field using CSV import:

1. Create the new Custom Field
2. Do a JQL search for all issues that are using the other custom field
3. Export as Excel file with those issues containing only these two columns:

•  The issue key
• The value in the custom field

     4. Open in an Excel editor

• Remove the first 3 lines and the last line after the data (so there’s only the header and the data)
• Add a ‘Summary’ column with no data in any issue (make sure not to add anything to this column other than name in the header, otherwise the summaries will be replaced for all issues it has a value)
• Edit the data to be added in the Custom Field, if needed (for example, if you're moving from a multi-line to a single-line text field, you may need to remove new lines, if it's from text to numeric, make sure there are only numbers, etc.)
• Save as CSV

      5. Import the CSV, mapping:

• The Summary to Summary (since it’s empty, it won’t do anything, but it’s required)
• The issue key to the issue key (so JIRA knows what issues to change)
• The value to the new custom field (changing the custom field)

[Hannes Obweger - JXL for Jira]

Hi @Geethanjali S J

if you're open to solutions from the Atlassian Marketplace, I think you might like JXL for Jira.

JXL is a full-fledged spreadsheet/table view for your issues that allows viewing and inline-editing all your issue fields. You can also edit fields in bulk, using copy/paste.

To solve your exact problem, you would simply have to,

• Add the two fields to your JXL view
• Mark the column of your Single Select field, and hit "Copy"
• Next, mark the column of your Text field and hit "Paste".

This is how this looks in action (in this example, for "Target start" and "Start date", but it would work exactly the same for your fields):

You can update any number of issues in one action.

(It's worth noting that JXL can do much more than that; from inline issue creation, to quick sorting and filtering, to support for issue hierarchies, issue grouping, and sum-ups. Disclaimer: I work on JXL :))

Hope this helps,

Best,

Hannes

[Alan Stephenson]

Hello,

Changing a field from drop down to text field isn't really possible. Others may have some suggestions but this is what I would recommend.

First, create a new field which is text. I would recommend giving this field name something unique from the existing drop down field name. Next, depending on how many choices are in your drop down field I would suggest using the bulk update to update the field.

Since I am not sure how many values you have, lets use this as an example.

Choices in drop down:

YES
NO
UNDECIDED

I would do a JQL query such as

customfieldname = YES

Next, using the bulk update select the option to edit those tickets and add YES to the new field you just created. This will only let you do 1000 rows at a time so you may need to become creative in searching through all of the issues. 

Once you are done doing all of YES options, move to the next one.

Another way to do it is with scriptrunner. If you have this plug-in you can leverage the option to copy field values from one field to another based on a JQL query. You can do the same process using the JQL query to break up your choices.

Hope that helps.

-alan

[Sreenivasaraju P]

@Geethanjali S J ,

As per my knowledge, out of the box this feature is not available. 

You can't change the field's type (for example, making a single-select field into a multi-select field). To change a field's type, recreate the field using the desired type.

Refer below link for more details.

https://support.atlassian.com/jira-cloud-administration/docs/edit-or-delete-a-custom-field/