Renaming Skills

Skills for Jira Configuration UI forbids renaming skills once Skillset fields are created. This limitation is necessary to ensure:

  • The ability to query issues by skill requirements in JQL;

  • The ability to refer to skills in custom automation outside of Skills for Jira;

  • Fast expert matching (i.e. matching task skill requirements with experts - seconds instead of minutes);

  • Performance and data consistency by avoiding re-synchroinization of hundreds of thousands of issues on rename;

There are several possible workarounds:

  1. Delete and re-create the skill

    This is the simplest approach to use until you have assigned the skill to users.

  2. Use a script (Python) https://www.dropbox.com/s/mlsc6ob1r2682db/rename-skill.py?dl=0
    The script updates the skill name, users' expertise and all the scoped issues that list this skill as a requirement.

  3. Use Skills for Jira API

    Skill and user expertise management are available via API. You can use it in your own automation

Using https://www.dropbox.com/s/mlsc6ob1r2682db/rename-skill.py?dl=0

Prerequisites:

  • Install Python 3

  • Download https://www.dropbox.com/s/mlsc6ob1r2682db/rename-skill.py?dl=0

  • Download

  • In the script directory run the following command to install the required libraries:

    pip install -r requirements.txt
  • Obtain endpoint URLs and credentials to be used by the script:

  • (Optional) Create a .env file in the script directory and fill in your credentials and endpoint URLs to providing this information on every script run:

    ATLASSIAN_INSTANCE=https://your-instance.atlassian.net/ ATLASSIAN_USERNAME=username@domain.com ATLASSIAN_TOKEN= API_TOKEN= GET_SKILL_ENDPOINT= CREATE_SKILL_ENDPOINT= DELETE_SKILL_ENDPOINT= GET_ALL_USERS_SKILLS_ENDPOINT= BULK_UPDATE_USERS_SKILLS_ENDPOINT= SYNC_SCOPE_JQL=

     

The script will ask you to enter the information, not supplied via environment variables

Executing the script:

python3 rename-skill.py "Old skill name" "New skill name"

Sample output: