Losing custom field data when using 'Move' to change Issue Type

[Jenn Molyneaux]

Hello!

I've found a dozen or so articles about this issue BUT they all pertain to moving Issue Types between a Classic project to a Next-gen project. Unfortunately for me, that's not the case here. This is all happening within one project. 

I've got a custom field within my Bug Issue Type named, 'Bug Description' (so that we can use default text to include a template for that field since you can't put default text into the System Description field).

When a user determines that Bug isn't the right Issue Type and they 'Move' it to a User Story, they're never prompted to map the contents of 'Bug Description' to something else within the User Story Issue Type and the data is lost.

Steps to reproduce - 

Create a Bug and enter data into 'Bug Description' 

Select 'Move' and leave the project the same but change the Issue Type from Bug to User Story. 

At this point, finish the process and move the Issue. I'm never prompted to select a mapping for 'Bug Description' to anything within the User Story Issue Type. 

Am I doing something wrong? Is there a way to make sure that the contents of 'Bug Description' are migrated into a field (ideally, Description) that exists within the User Story Issue Type?

[Mikael Sandberg · Accepted solution]

The data is not lost, it is just hidden. If you add the Bug description to the screen used by your user story you should be able to see it again.

[Mikael Sandberg]

And if you want to move the information in Bug description to Description when you move an issue you can do that using automation.

[Jenn Molyneaux]

Hi Mikael - 

Thanks so much for clarifying. I'm glad I haven't lost the data. That being said, I don't want to add the Bug Description field to the User Story Issue Type but Automation does sound promising. Would you point me in the direction of some documentation/articles on automating this when an item is moved from one Issue Type to another?

[Mikael Sandberg]

The automation template library is a good start, Jira automation template library, and it has a playground where you can set up an automation. And you can find the documentation here, Automate your Jira Cloud processes and workflows.

[Jenn Molyneaux]

Thank you so much! I truly appreciate it! The forums here have never let me down :)

[Devin Haynes]

Hi Mikael,

When I move Bug to Story then back to a Bug it would normally repopulate the fields with the data. It's no longer doing that and I have to look at the history and manually input the fields again. Why is that not working now?

[Mikael Sandberg]

@Devin Haynes, if the issue types that you are moving between are using the same configuration the field values will be retained, but if you move between issue types that are on different configurations it will not retain the values. When you are using multiple configurations you can see it as different fields, the only common between them is the field name, nothing else. 

[Madhu_Rathnasekar]

Hi @Mikael Sandberg I'm facing the same issue when I change the ticket type from Bug to anything else, the data from my custom field "Bug Description" doesn't get mapped to the Description field. I tried automation but didn't succeed. Could you provide the inputs for the rule builder?
Thanks!

[Mikael Sandberg]

@Madhu_Rathnasekar This should be it's own question and then reference this one.

What does you automation looks like? All you would have to do in order to populate the Description field with the "Bug Description" would be to use the smart value for it like this:

{{issue.Bug Description}}

To add it to the description and retain the description as well just do this when creating the clone:

{{issue.description}}

{{issue.Bug Description}}

Please note that automations run after an action happens, so you cannot trigger on issue type field change and retain the data from the "old" issue type.