Moving ideas (field values lost)
Asked by Michael Mackuliak:

Hi JPD team,

I'm testing moving around ideas between some projects and am noticing that while comments and insights are saved the field values are not. I can confirm:  
- the projects have the me fields and field values (eg. Roadmap field with the same "Now", "Next", "Later" option)

- I am selecting "Retain" during the move operation.

This feels like a bug vs design.


Answers:
author: Tanguy Crusson
body: Hi [@Michael Mackuliak](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/3627946) - the definition of fields is unique to each project by default. Meaning a field named "A" in one project is not the same as a field named "A" in another project. That's why the values are not retained when you move the idea between projects (if you move the idea back to the source project you'll see the field value is still there though).

What you can do though is define **global fields** (fields which are shared between projects) and add them to each project. When you move ideas between projects, their field values for global fields will be retained.

<https://support.atlassian.com/jira-product-discovery/docs/create-and-manage-global-fields/>

Edit: also, demo here:

<https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-Product-Discovery-articles/Product-Update-Global-fields-amp-Fields-management-page/ba-p/2699796>


author: Walter Buggenhout
body: Hi [@Michael Mackuliak](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/3627946),

Jira Product Discovery is built on the foundation of team managed projects. These are very much silos, not sharing their configuration across different projects. While fields may have the same names in different projects, they are essentially different fields. And so data are lost as a result when you move ideas around.

Hope this clarifies.

comments: author: Tanguy Crusson
body: EXCEPT when you use global fields. And then you can move ideas between projects and the values are retained.

<https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-Product-Discovery-articles/Product-Update-Global-fields-amp-Fields-management-page/ba-p/2699796>


author: Nick H
body: Hi [@Michael Mackuliak](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/3627946) ,

Instead of [bulk editing/moving](https://support.atlassian.com/jira-service-management-cloud/docs/edit-multiple-issues-at-the-same-time/) the ideas, my personal suggestion would be to [export/import the ideas](https://support.atlassian.com/jira-product-discovery/docs/export-jira-product-discovery-data/) from project to project via CSV.

As you mentioned, the retain option does not always work as expected when moving ideas from project to project. Importing ideas to another project allows for a bit more flexibility of mapping field to field.

If you do test this, specifically when it comes to comments - you can map the Comments to the Comment body and this should copy them over as expected.

It's also best practice when mapping fields, they are the same [field-type](https://support.atlassian.com/jira-product-discovery/docs/jira-product-discovery-fields-reference/). You don't necessarily need to have the values/options preexisting in the field(s) you are importing because the import can create the values/options. But importing cannot create, or essentially clone a field in a new project if it does not already exist. So you may also want to have those fields created beforehand.

Hope that helps and makes sense! Let us know if you run into any questions and/or issues with this method.


Tags: move