Is there a way to bulk edit without using automation?

[Todd Palermo]

Problem: I need to edit a field on 5,000-8,000 records at a time, maybe 10 to 20 times a year. I can bulk edit these manually, but I would like to run a script to do it instead to make this more user friendly and for non-admins to run.

I have Automation for Jira, but I don’t want to use it for this problem because of the amount of records. Last time I did something like this, it went into Service Limit mode and stopped working for a while.

I also have Scriptrunner and Lookup Manager, but don’t think Lookup Manager works with Scriptrunner.

Does anyone have any ideas on how to solve this?

[John Funk · Accepted solution]

Hi Todd,

You can use the bulk edit function manually but with only 1,000 or less at a time. Is there a reason you have to wait and do them all at once? Can you not do them gradually through the year? 

And you could still use Automation For Jira but you just need to base it on a query that only does about 1,000 at a time. 

[Todd Palermo]

Hi John,

Thanks for the suggestion. As a last resort I will do it by bulk edit, I was just hoping there was a more automated route for this. There is more to the story on this function.

The field update is based on project milestones. A project might have 10 milestones before the project is done. We write up an issue and set a milestone that this issue must close. If the issue is open past the must close milestone then it is late. The milestones move frequently and their quantity in any given year can be different but each project has the exact same milestones.

This timeline is not related to the Status. I need a way to indicate that when the milestone changes in the project, we can indicate that in every open issue so that we can determine if it is late or not.

So a bulk edit will work; when the milestone passes, I can bulk edit the next milestone in every event to compare with the must close milestone. I really want the project leaders to be able to do this, but they are not Jira project Admin or Jira Admin. I was hoping for some cross reference matrix or some cool automation that might exist.

I have changed our bulk edit to 5000 which will help, but I am still on the hunt for a better option.

[John Funk]

How many projects are involved? Maybe you could run a rule per project to keep the numbers down. If you can create 8 rules, grouping projects to keep the numbers under 1,000, then you can use Automation for Jira.