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Overview

Power Admin for Jira allows you to accomplish one of the most challenging and complex administrative tasks in Jira - merging custom fields. Our app gives you an intuitive, simplified, and quick way of merging two custom fields of the same type and confidently resolving conflicts along the way.

Let's say you have many custom fields with a similar configuration accumulated throughout your Jira's lifespan, and it makes it nearly impossible for you to make changes to and clean up those custom fields using Jira's built-in configuration tools.

You can finally get rid of duplicate, legacy, and unnecessary custom fields without losing complete visibility on what will change and how your Jira configuration will look afterward. This way, you will reduce the number of custom fields on your system and improve your Jira performance significantly without disrupting your users' everyday Jira usage.

During the merge of source and destination custom fields, Power Admin allows you to decide how to merge their conflicting contexts. You can merge or replace their options. You can also choose whether to merge or replace the source and destination custom field values in issues.

How it works

Power Admin for Jira lets you choose source and destination custom fields and then merge their contexts and issue values. There is a new action button on custom fields' profile pages called Merge, and it is enabled for custom fields of the supported types listed below.

With Power Admin, you can merge custom fields of the following types:

• Number

• Text (single and multi-line)

• URL

• Date Picker

• Date Time Picker

• Labels

• Group Picker (multiple groups)

• Select List (single and multiple choices)

• Checkboxes

• Radio Buttons

Merge flow

The merge process as described on the merge wizard's initial page takes you through the following steps: Select Custom Fields, Merge Contexts - merge context options and values in issues when both source and destination fields are used in the same project context, Preview in advance the merged contexts and the changes in the configuration, run the Merge and get a Final Report of the merge.

Conflicts between contexts

There is a conflict between source and destination contexts when:

1. The source and destination fields are used in the same project.

2. The fields are from custom field types with options, OR the field is multi-valued (labels, group picker).

In these cases, you must decide how to merge the contexts by choosing between the merge or replace options. In all other cases, contexts are merged automatically.

Merge result

The source custom field's values in issues and contexts will be merged into the destination custom field. All configuration that references the source field will be updated to point to the destination field (e.g., screens, filters, etc.). After the merge, Power Admin will not delete the source custom field.

Merge custom fields

To merge two custom fields of the same type:

1. On Power Admin's Landing page, select Custom Field from the drop-down, type a name or id, and start your search.

2. On the Search results page, click on а custom field's name. Power Admin will redirect you to the custom field's profile page.

3. Click the Merge button on the profile page and start the merge.

   

4. After the initial page of the merge wizard, choose a destination custom field. You could remove the current source field and pick a new one.

5. The Results section shows you the details and the contexts of the result custom field.

6. If there are conflicts between source and destination contexts, you will see an Action Required warning. You will need to confirm how a particular context from the destination field will be merged with the relevant context in the destination custom field before proceeding to the next step.

   

7. Click the pencil next to the Action Required warning, and the Context Merge section will appear.

   

8. Choose between the Replace or Merge actions for merging context options or values in issues.

9. Confirm the context changes and move to the next step.

10. On the Preview phase, review in advance what the final result will be and what configuration will be updated.

    

11. Click the Merge button to run the merge operation.

12. Review the final report of the completed merge operation.

    

Context merge

The main principle behind the logic for context merging is that for a given project and issue type, the resulting custom field (after the merge) should work in the same way as before. If the source or destination field contexts did include this project and issue type, the resulting contexts should also include it, and vice-versa.

The context merge has two aspects:

• Option merge - merging context options. Power Admin will offer you options on merging the source and destination custom field contexts when they have options.

• Issue value merge - merging the source custom field values in issues with the destination field issues.

Default value

When merging conflicting contexts, the destination field's default value is taken for the result custom field.

Examples of how contexts are calculated in the merge result custom field:

Option merge

Power Admin for Jira allows you to choose how to merge the options of conflicting source and destination contexts of custom fields with options. You can either merge the options from two conflicting contexts or replace the destination options with the source context options.

Power Admin automatically merges the contexts of custom fields without options.

Merge

The options of the source field will be merged with the options of the destination field.

Example

Replace

When replacing, only the options of the destination field will remain. The options of the source field will be lost. Issues will lose all options of the source field which are not present in the destination field.

Example

Value merge

For labels, group picker, multi-select, and checkbox custom fields, you can choose how to merge their issue values.

You can choose between two options: merge or replace issue values.

Merge

When choosing merge, for each issue, the values of the source and destination fields will be merged.

Moved values - number of issues where the values of the source field are moved to the destination field and the destination field does not have a value for this issue.

Example

Source field values: A, B (these values in issues will be moved to the destination field)

Destination field values: no value

Result field values: A, B

Merged values - number of issues where the source and destination custom field values will be merged.

Example

Source field values: A, B

Destination field values: C, D

Result field values: A, B, C, D

Replace

When choosing the replace option, the value of the destination field won't be changed. If there is no value for the destination field, the value from the source field will be moved to the destination field.

Lost values - the number of issues that will lose their source custom field values after the merge.

Example

Source field values: A, B (these values in issues will be lost)

Destination field values: C, D

Result field values: C, D

Moved values - number of issues where the value of the source field will be transferred to the destination field.

Automatic value merge

Fields that do not support options and only allow a single value are merged by Power Admin automatically. In this case, the value of the destination field is used in the merge result. If there is no value for the destination field, the value from the source field is taken (i.e., the destination field always has precedence over the source field).