Update the Original Estimate field for Jira issues in bulk

Platform Notice: Cloud - This article applies to Atlassian products on the cloud platform.

   

Summary

Users want to perform Bulk operation --> Edit issue and edit the "Original estimate" field for the issues fetched via a JQL. Please note it is not possible to edit the Original estimate using Bulk action in Jira Cloud natively. This document will provide a few workarounds to achieve this use case and will help the users to perform bulk edit operations on Jira issues to update the Original Estimate field.

Environment

Jira Cloud

Diagnosis

This request is logged as a feature request, please refer to Bulk Edit: Time Tracking Estimates.

We encourage you to visit the request linked above and click the Vote and Watch links near the top right to show support for the feature. Doing this will ensure you are proactively informed of progress and updates going forward in accordance with our Implementation of New Features Policy 

Workarounds

Workaround using Automation for Jira

You can create a simple automation rule to bulk edit these values (assuming that you want to set the field to the same value for all tasks):

  • Create a Scheduled automation within the trigger and use a JQL to find issues with an empty original estimate (originalEstimate is EMPTY)
  • Add an Edit Issues action, select Original Estimate from the dropdown, and enter the value you wish to set.
  • Once you create the automation, click on the Turn on the rule button press on the Run rule button, and check the audit log to view the execution of the automation rule.

                                                                        

Workaround using Jira REST API

We have a REST API endpoint available for bulk editing time-tracking fields via the JIRA REST API. So you can create a script iterating over all the issues (using the issue key) and parsing it to the below API endpoint.

Sending PUT to Resource: /rest/api/2/issue/{issueIdOrKey}

Example body content if one or both fields are changed:
{
    "update": 
    {
        "timetracking": 
        [
            {
                "edit": {
                     "originalEstimate": "4m",
                     "remainingEstimate": "3m"
                }
            }
        ]
    }
}
Example body content if changing both fields
{
    "fields": 
    {
        "timetracking": {
            "originalEstimate": "4m",
            "remainingEstimate": "3m",
        }
    }
}

Workaround using a paid add-on application

On searching online, we found a marketplace app JXL for Jira which can help in copying and pasting any field value to multiple issues, using the spreadsheet app JXL:

  • Install JXL on your Jira site
  • Create a sheet inside Jira with all the issues you want to change (you can write JQL for this)
  • Add the Original estimate column to the sheet (or whatever field you want to bulk change)
  • Edit, mark, and copy (⌘/Ctrl + C) a cell with the desired field value
  • Mark multiple cells and paste (⌘/Ctrl + V) the copied value into them
  • JXL takes care of the bulk change for you instantly

A demo for the bulk update of the Original Estimate field using the app is available here at this link: Demo and documentation for this add on app is listed here: Documentation

Please note that the support for third-party apps is outside the scope of Atlassian's support offerings. Hence, if there are any queries/issues using this app, you will have to contact the app vendor by navigating to the Support section of the marketplace app link.



Last modified on Mar 11, 2024

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