Bulk operations

1 min read

When an installation has accumulated a few hundred advanced filters, tidying them one at a time isn’t realistic. Bulk operations let you archive, reactivate, delete or reassign up to 25 filters in one action.

Open Global settings → Bulk operations. It also appears on the filter list itself for anyone holding Run bulk operations, Jira administrators included.

The five actions #

Action	Typical use
Archive	Clearing finished spaces out of everyone’s filter list
Reactivate	Bringing filters back after an auto-archive
Delete	Freeing capacity (the only thing that does)
Add administrator	Onboarding someone, or covering a leaver’s filters
Remove administrator	Offboarding

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Add administrator is the offboarding tool. When someone leaves, add their replacement across all their filters in one go, then remove the leaver, rather than hunting down orphaned filters later.

Running one #

Choose the action first, above the table. Nothing is preselected.
Select the filters you want. The count of selected filters shows beside the action.
Select Review action.
Read the confirmation, then confirm.

The table shows up to 50 filters at a time, ordered by name. If the installation has more, use Open the filter list. It runs the same actions over a search rather than a fixed page, which is usually what you want anyway.

The Bulk operations table with Archive chosen above it and two filters selected. — Pick the action first, then the filters.

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25 filters per operation. Select more and Review action is disabled with the real count still on screen. Nothing is ever quietly applied to just the first 25.

The confirmation #

You’ll get a dialog naming the action and the count (“Archive 2 filters?”, “Delete 12 filters?”), listing ten by name with Show all N filters for the rest. Focus opens on Cancel.

Delete confirmations show you where those filters are used (how many gadgets and dashboards) before you commit. Read that count. Gadgets and shared links using these filters will stop working, and this cannot be undone. If you just want them out of the way, archive instead.

The delete confirmation dialog listing the selected filter, its recorded gadget usage and the closing sentence. — A delete confirmation shows recorded usage before the irreversible line.

Reading the result #

Every filter is checked individually, so it’s normal for an operation to apply to some and skip others. The report says “N of M filters changed” and lists every one that didn’t, with the reason:

Not available to you / You do not administer it: the grant opens the page; it doesn’t widen what you can do to any individual filter.
Changed by somebody else: someone edited it after your table loaded, so it’s reported rather than swept along.
A filter that is active cannot be reactivated: Archive and Delete give the equivalent reason.
Could not be changed: something else went wrong.