JIRA Import Wizard - purpose of Map Field Value Check Box

[Mark Gordon]

JIRA,

I have gotten the import wizard working nicely and pretty much understand how to use it. But, I do not understand why someone would want to select the Map Field Value check box. That brings up antohe screen whcih lets you enter other values. For my work I am mapping the fields in the csv to Jira, leaving the Map Field Values unchecked and using everything as is from the CSV. Why would one use Map Field Value Check box?

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Accepted solution]

It's for mapping values, as it says on the tin.

Let's say you have a select list that should contain

Red

Yellow

Blue

But your import data contains Red, red, RED, Yellow, purpli, Blue, blueish, pink - you probably want all the Red variants to be red, blue to be blue and so-on

[Thomas Burke]

still don't understand.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

When you are importing data into a select list field, there are three things you can do with your data.

A select list type field has a set of options.  When importing, you need to tell Jira which option should be selected for each piece of incoming data.

Imagine your target field is the list of the seven colours people attrbute to rainbows and you want to import colours into it.

If you have a colour in your import data that is not one of the seven, then you need to tell Jira what to "map" it to.  For example, if your data says "scarlet", that is not a recogniable rainbow colour in text, so you probably want to tell Jira "that is 'red'".

This is not a hugely complex idea.  You have data that does not make sense in the target system.  So the import is asking you how to "map" it so that the imported value does make sense.

The three things you can do with your data are:

• Throw it away
• Add an option to Jira so that it can show the new thing it did not know before import
• Map it to existing options in Jira so that it can absorb it as part of your standardised data

[briancox]

How do I do this, to add a list of new values to a new attribute in existing tickets by mapping to the issue key of the current task. 

For example I need to have the epic visible as an attribute in all tasks & for some reason it is not able to do so. 

I am connecting to smartsheets & need to use it as a filter. 

[Mark Gordon]

Nic,

Thanks. Your explanation "example" should be in the doco as exactly what you wrote :)