Clone Expert for Jira – Frequently Asked Questions

The best approach is to use a dedicated cloning app, such as Clone Expert for Jira, which enables full customization, bulk actions, and hierarchy preservation.

Jira’s native “Clone” option only duplicates work items with limited customization. For teams working with recurring processes or templates, Clone Expert for Jira provides the most effective method. It supports cloning entire hierarchies (Epics → Stories → Subtasks), cross-project cloning, editing fields before cloning, and bulk adjustments, such as shifting dates or adding prefixes. This ensures cloned work items are immediately ready to use.

Use Clone Expert for Jira to bulk clone multiple issues, including their hierarchy, comments, and attachments.

Native Jira does not provide bulk clone functionality. With Clone Expert for Jira, you can select multiple issues (e.g. Stories, Tasks, Bugs) and clone them in one operation. The app offers advanced options, including keeping or skipping subtasks, bulk editing summaries and dates, cross-project cloning, and maintaining links. This saves time when managing repetitive or large task sets.

Yes, Jira can clone Epics with child issues – but customization is very limited. Clone Expert extends this with full flexibility.

Jira’s built-in clone lets you duplicate an Epic along with its child Stories, Tasks, and Sub-tasks. However, customization options are minimal: you can only change the Summary of the top-level issue, while child items are copied “as is”. Prefixes like CLONE – are added automatically, and all fields are cloned without adjustments.

With Clone Expert for Jira, you gain advanced control:

• Include or exclude selected child work items and subtasks

• Edit field values before cloning (summaries, dates, assignees, custom fields, etc.)

• Apply bulk updates such as prefixes/suffixes or date shifts

• Clone across projects and maintain hierarchy links

This makes Clone Expert a much more powerful solution for reusing Epics as templates or repeating complex workflows.

You can read more about cloning customization here.

Create templates and clone them with Clone Expert for Jira to save time and ensure consistency.

Recurring tasks (onboarding, sprint planning, product releases, compliance checks) can be managed by creating template issues or Epics in Jira. Using Clone Expert, you can duplicate these templates with all sub-tasks, attachments, and comments. Before cloning, you can adjust dates, assignees, or summaries to ensure every clone is ready for planning without requiring extra manual edits.

Jira’s clone is basic; Clone Expert offers advanced cloning, customization, and bulk options.

• Native Jira Clone: limited to single issues, with minimal customization (only summary, assignee, and reporter changes). Automatically adds “CLONE” to summaries.

• Clone Expert for Jira: clones single or multiple issues, entire hierarchies, Epics with children, or even cross-project structures. It lets you edit any field before cloning, bulk-update values, use placeholders, and define cloning strategies. Attachments, comments, links, and watchers can also be cloned. This makes it ideal for recurring workflows.

Read more in this article: Native Jira Clone vs. Clone Expert – Features Comparison.

Use Clone Expert to clone Epics with their entire hierarchy and adjust fields before cloning.

In Clone Expert, select an Epic and choose the option to include all child issues and sub-tasks in the clone scope. In the preview table, you’ll see the full hierarchy, with checkboxes to exclude any item if needed. You can adjust field values (summaries, due dates, assignees) before cloning. This ensures the cloned Epic is complete and immediately usable for planning.

For more information, please refer to the documentation.

Yes, Clone Expert lets you include or exclude specific child issues in the preview table.

When cloning an Epic in Clone Expert, the preview table lists all child work items and subtasks. Each has a checkbox next to it, so you can deselect the ones you don’t want to clone. This is useful for reusing an Epic structure but skipping tasks that don’t apply to the new project or sprint.

For more information, please refer to the documentation.

Clone Expert enables cloning Epics and assigning them to higher-level parents, such as Initiatives or Capabilities.

In Jira Premium or Data Center with Advanced Roadmaps, Clone Expert supports cloning Epics directly under an existing parent (e.g. Initiative, Program, Capability). In the cloning form, select the option “Clone Epic to existing parent” and choose the target parent from the dropdown. The cloned Epic and its child work items will be linked accordingly, preserving hierarchy.

For more information, please refer to the documentation.

With Clone Expert, you can clone a Story or Task and assign it to a different Epic.

When cloning a Story or Task, you can select a different Epic as the new parent. In the cloning form, check the option “Select parent for the top-level work item” and choose the target Epic. The cloned work item will be linked to that Epic, along with its subtasks if included. This is helpful when moving reusable user stories or tasks into different Epics.

For more information, please refer to the documentation.

Yes, Clone Expert supports cloning higher-level items, such as Initiatives or Programs.

In Jira Cloud Premium or Data Center with Advanced Roadmaps, hierarchies can go above Epics (e.g. Initiative → Epic → Story). Clone Expert supports cloning items at these higher levels. You can duplicate Initiatives with linked Epics, or Capabilities with their child structures. Options allow you to reassign them to existing higher-level parents, ensuring portfolio-level planning remains consistent.

Mark Epics as templates and clone them with Clone Expert to generate sprint-ready tasks.

A common practice is to prepare Epics with child issues and tag them as “[TEMPLATE]”. When starting a new sprint, use Clone Expert to duplicate the Epic template. In the cloning form, adjust summaries, dates, and assignees. The result is a sprint-ready Epic with all tasks properly configured, saving time and ensuring consistency across sprints.

Watch this video to learn more.

Select the issue, click Clone, and adjust details in Clone Expert’s form.

When cloning a single issue (Task, Story, Bug, etc.), Clone Expert gives you full flexibility. You can edit any field (summary, description, assignee, due dates), decide whether to include attachments, comments, or links, and even switch the issue type (e.g. Story → Task). This makes single-issue cloning more powerful than Jira’s native option.

Learn more from Clone single work item article.

Yes, Clone Expert lets you include or exclude subtasks when cloning.

By default, subtasks are included in the cloning process. In the Include section of the form, you’ll see the “Subtasks” checkbox. If you leave it checked, all sub-tasks are cloned. If you uncheck it, only the parent issue is cloned. You can also selectively uncheck specific subtasks in the preview table.

For more information, please refer to the documentation.

Clone Expert always keeps subtasks linked to the same parent when cloned.

When you clone a subtask, Clone Expert automatically assigns it to the same parent issue as the original. This follows Jira’s logic, which states that subtasks cannot exist without a parent. The cloned subtask remains in the same project as the parent, and you can still edit its fields before confirming the clone.

Yes, simply unselect the parent work item in the preview table.

When cloning a hierarchy (e.g. Epic with Stories, or Story with Sub-tasks), Clone Expert displays all issues in a preview table. By deselecting the top-level item, you can clone only the children. For example, you can copy all Stories from an Epic without duplicating the Epic itself. The cloned issues will not have a parent unless you reassign them.

Read more in the article Clone only child work items.

Use the preview table in Clone Expert to edit fields directly before cloning.

Clone Expert allows you to adjust any editable field (summary, description, dates, assignee, labels, custom fields) directly in the preview table before cloning. You can also bulk-edit columns: overwrite all values, add prefixes/suffixes, replace text, or shift dates. This ensures cloned issues are immediately ready for planning.

All capabilities can be checked in the documentation chapter Adjusting Fields Before Cloning.

Yes, Clone Expert supports bulk updates on multiple fields.

In the preview table, use the column menu to apply bulk operations. Supported actions include overwriting values (e.g. new assignee for all tasks), adding prefixes or suffixes (e.g. version number in summary), replacing text, or adjusting dates (adding/subtracting days, months, years). This enables large-scale cloning to occur much faster and more consistently.

For more information, please refer to the documentation.

Placeholders dynamically insert values into fields during cloning.

Clone Expert supports placeholders in text fields, such as summary or description. For example:

• {SUMMARY} adds the original issue’s summary

• {DATE} inserts today’s date

• {PROJECT} inserts the project key

When cloning, placeholders are automatically replaced with real values, letting you build reusable templates that adapt to each new context.

The entire scope of placeholders is presented on this page.

Yes, you can select a different work type before cloning.

In the preview table, the “Type” column allows you to modify the cloned work type. For example, you can clone a Story as a Task, or a Bug as an Improvement. Limitations: hierarchy rules still apply (you can’t convert sub-tasks into Epics, etc.). This option is helpful when reusing items in different workflows.

For more information, please refer to the Work type change section.

Yes, you can clone a work item into any destination project.

Clone Expert allows you to define a Destination project in the cloning form. Two strategies are available:

1. Child issues cloned into the same projects they originally belong to (maintains cross-project hierarchy).
2. All issues cloned into the selected destination project.

This flexibility is ideal for teams working across multiple projects or departments.

For more information, please refer to the documentation.

Yes, Clone Expert supports cloning attachments, comments, links, and watchers.

In the Include section of the cloning form, you can choose whether to clone attachments, comments, links, and watchers. By default, these options are off, but you can enable them with checkboxes. Jira limitations apply: cloned comments will show the current user as the author and the clone date as the timestamp.

Yes, you can add new issues directly in the preview table.

Clone Expert allows you to add entirely new work items to the clone set before execution. These appear at the bottom of the preview table and are linked to the top-level item. You can define their summaries, fields, and assignees. This is useful when you realize something is missing in your template.

For more information, please refer to the documentation.

Yes, uncheck any item in the preview table to skip it.

Every work item in the clone set has a checkbox to its left. By default, all are selected. You can deselect specific issues (Stories, Tasks, Sub-tasks) to exclude them from cloning. This flexibility allows for the reuse of only the relevant parts of a hierarchy without recreating unnecessary items.

Sections Epic clone with selected children and Clone work item with selected children will tell you a bit more about this feature.

Yes – you can edit any available fields directly in the preview table before running the bulk clone.

Before confirming the bulk clone, you can adjust fields such as summary, due dates, assignees, or custom fields.
Each field can be changed manually or using bulk operations (overwrite, add prefix/suffix, replace text, adjust dates, etc.).
This allows you to prepare ready-to-plan issues that don’t require additional edits after cloning.

No – there are no limits. You can clone any number of work items in one action.

Bulk Clone is designed for scalability and efficiency. Whether you need to clone a small set of related issues or hundreds of items across multiple projects, Clone Expert handles it smoothly.
The process is optimized to maintain data integrity, links, and hierarchy even with large datasets.

Yes – you can select issues using JQL, saved filters, Work Item Search, or the Ask AI option.

Detailed:
To define which issues to clone, you can use multiple selection methods:

• Basic search (with standard Jira filters)
• JQL queries for precise conditions
• Work Item Search for quick filtering
• Ask AI, which intelligently interprets your request (e.g., “tasks from last sprint assigned to John”)

Once selected, all issues appear in the preview table ready for configuration.

Yes – Bulk Clone can preserve parent–child relationships or flatten the hierarchy depending on your configuration.

You can choose whether to maintain the full hierarchy (Epics → Tasks → Sub-tasks) or clone all selected items as a flat list.
This flexibility makes it ideal for both structured and ad-hoc cloning scenarios.

Yes – you can define a destination project for all cloned issues.

Detailed:
In the Destination project field, select the target project for the cloned items.
Depending on your chosen cloning strategy, child issues can either:

• be cloned into the same project as their parent, or
• remain in their original projects to preserve multi-project structures.

Yes, Clone Expert is available for both Jira Cloud and Jira Data Center.

Clone Expert supports both major Jira hosting models: Jira Cloud and Jira Data Center. Functionality is aligned across both versions, with minor technical differences depending on the hosting environment. You can find both editions on the Atlassian Marketplace, listed under the same product.

Yes, Clone Expert is free for up to 10 users.

For small teams, Clone Expert is completely free if your Jira instance has up to 10 users. For larger teams, Atlassian applies a per-user pricing model. This makes it easy to test the app in small environments without incurring costs, and scale later as your team grows.

Yes, Clone Expert is free for up to 10 users.

Long: Atlassian Marketplace provides a 30-day trial period for all paid apps, including Clone Expert. During this period, you will have full access to all features without any restrictions. The trial automatically ends unless you choose to continue with a paid license. This gives you enough time to test the app in real workflows before making a purchasing decision.

👉 During the trial, our team is happy to help you get familiar with the product. You can:

• Book a session in our calendar: schedule a time here

• Submit a request through our support portal

This way, you can not only test Clone Expert but also get hands-on guidance tailored to your use case.

Open Clone Expert for Jira and click Try it free. Installation takes less than a minute, and you can activate the trial version immediately.

Hierarchy rules prevent invalid changes.

Clone Expert lets you change work types (e.g. Story → Task) during cloning. However, you cannot break Jira’s hierarchy rules – for example, you can’t convert a sub-task into an Epic, or an Epic into a subtask. This ensures consistency with your Jira setup and prevents invalid relationships.

Jira’s API sets the cloner as the new author.

Due to Jira platform limitations, cloned comments always appear with:

• The current user (who performed the clone) as the author.

• The clone timestamp as the creation date.

This behavior applies to all Marketplace apps – Jira does not allow preserving the original author/date metadata for comments.

Use our support portal or Atlassian Marketplace contact form.

If you encounter problems, need assistance, or want to suggest a new feature, you can reach us via:

• Our support page

• Email jira.support@vilisoft.com

We aim to respond promptly and utilize customer feedback to inform the app’s roadmap.