How to Auto-Fill Issue Pickers Based on Existing Links
1. Why Auto-Filling?
Required Jira Role: JIRA SOFTWARE ADMINISTRATOR
Auto-filling is useful for the following reasons:
Migration from VIP.LEAN Advanced Links to the VIP.LEAN Issue Picker: An initial population of the new Issue Pickers is necessary to restore the same state as in the old app.
Migration from a competitor's app to VIP.LEAN Issue Pickers.
Installation in an existing instance with already linked work items that need to be initially populated.
2. Preconditions
Required Jira Role: JIRA SOFTWARE ADMINISTRATOR
Before executing the auto-fill for the new Issue Picker, the Jira admin should complete the following tasks:
Create the new Issue Picker using the VIP.LEAN app.
Configure the Issue Picker, including all required parameters. A link type must be configured to enable the auto-fill feature.
Configure contexts, if necessary, using different selection logic (e.g., based on the current project and/or JQL) for the selected context.
Assign the Issue Picker to the correct Edit screens of the issue types and projects where you want to auto-fill the work items.
Ensure that the target work items already have existing links to work items that match the Issue Picker’s JQL and context configuration (if defined).
3. Prepare the Auto-Fill Bulk Process
Required Jira Role: JIRA SOFTWARE ADMINISTRATOR
Click on the icon next to the Issue Picker you want to auto-fill:
The app will now perform the following checks:
Identify the custom field behind the selected Issue Picker.
Check which Edit screens the custom field is assigned to.
Navigate through the screen schemes and issue type screen schemes to determine which projects and issue types allow the app to edit the Issue Picker.
The results will be displayed for your review:
The Jira Admin can adapt the selection
Select a subset of projects you want to include in the auto-fill process.
Add your own JQL filter, which will be combined with our search logic using an “AND” condition.
Then click on “Load work item candidates”: the app looks for
Work items that match the selected project and issue type conditions (based on the Edit screen configuration and Jira Admin Selection).
Work items that match that match the JQL, if entered by Jira Admin.
Work items where the Issue Picker field is empty (auto-fill only applies to empty fields).
Work items that are linked using the correct link type to other work items that fully match the Issue Picker’s JQL and context conditions.
The candidates list will be then prepared
4. Select the Work Items for the Auto-Fill Process
Required Jira Role: JIRA SOFTWARE ADMINISTRATOR
The app scans up to 3,000 work items to identify those eligible for auto-fill. This screening process may result in a list of candidates. If more than 1,000 eligible work items are found, the Project Admin can process a maximum of 1,000.
If 1,000 or fewer candidates are identified, all of them can be processed in one go. The Project Admin will receive a list of up to 1,000 candidates, including:
The source work items
The target field value that would be filled
The Project Admin can either:
Select all candidates
Manually select specific work items to auto-fill
If the results need refinement, the Project Admin can:
Return to step 3
Adjust the JQL or project selection
Click “Load Work Item Candidates” again to restart the process
5. Exceute the Auto-Fill Process
Required Jira Role: JIRA SOFTWARE ADMINISTRATOR
The project admin can now push the Start Button and the process starts. It can be cancelled any time:
After the completion of the process the following final message will be displayed:
The process window can be now closed (Click “Cancel”). The Jira Admin can now check the changes in Work Items - The Auto Fill works as required:
6. Handling of a Major Number of Work Items
Required Jira Role: JIRA SOFTWARE ADMINISTRATOR
After a full iteration of an Auto-Fill Bulk action, the popup window must be closed by clicking “Cancel.”
To process the remaining work items, please restart from Step 3.
The next list of candidates may be:
Empty, if all eligible work items have already been processed, or
A new batch of eligible work items ready for processing
Note: Previously processed work items now have their Issue Picker fields filled and are therefore no longer considered as candidates.
Similar to Atlassian’s own bulk processing limitations, the 1,000-item limit is crucial to protect the performance and stability of your Jira instance.
Atlassian has implemented several safeguards to prevent long-running operations from overloading the system — and our app follows the same strategy to ensure reliability.
⚠️ Important:
Please make sure that no two Project Admins run the Auto-Fill process at the same time, as this could lead to performance degradation or conflicts during data processing.
