The Jira to Azure DevOps work item migration tool lets you export data from Jira and import it as work items in Azure DevOps or Microsoft Team Foundation Server.
The migration process is done in two phases, first data is exported from Jira to text files. This can be done in a number of batches until the right set of items are ready for import.
The second step imports the data files to work items in Azure DevOps/TFS.
The key capabilities of the tool include:
- Jira items are exported based on JQL queries.
- Users can be translated during migration in order to maintain proper history.
- Field mapping is provided to map fields from the source to target account based on a configuration file.
- State mapping between Jira and Azure DevOps states.
- History from Jira is maintained.
- Dates such as created or changed date are maintained.
- Area/Iteration paths can be defaulted to a specific value when they don't exist in the target project.
The tool is officially released to Windows 64bit only, but cross-platform support is available through Dotnet Core.
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Identify the migration account (username and password) to access Jira Note:
401 exceptions can occur when you use your email address rather than username. To resolve this use -u USERNAME.
If you continue to receive 401 exceptions your password may be causing the issue, go to https://id.atlassian.com/manage/api-tokens and generate an API token. Use this token the same way you would your password -p API_TOKEN
If you receive a 400 error after the "Retrieving Jira link types" process starts you need to use your email address as your username -u EMAIL_ADDRESS
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Get the url to Jira and the name of the source project
- Get the name of the target Azure DevOps organization/TFS collection
- Acquire a personal access token for the organization/collection with the following scopes: Work Items (Read, write, & manage) as minimum requirement.
- Ensure that the migration user is granted the Bypass rules on work item update permission on the target ADO project.
- Ensure that the migration user is granted the Create child nodes permission on the base area path and iteration path in the target ADO project.
- Get the url and the name of the target project. The import tool can create the target project if it does not already exist.
- Discuss how users should be mapped between Jira and Azure DevOps/TFS.
The process below describes the high-level steps required to migrate data from Jira to Azure DevOps.
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Define a Jira JQL filter for the items to export, for instance here's how to export all stories and sub-tasks from the SCRUM project:
project = SCRUM AND issuetype in (Story, Sub-task) ORDER BY Rank ASC -
Define how to map users
This is an optional step but it's common that the names/account in Jira and Azure DevOps/TFS are different. Map Jira users to Azure DevOps/TFS users in a text file with email value pairs in when using Jira Server and accountId/email value value pairs when using Jira Cloud like this. It is possible to use email value pairs for Jira Cloud too but then the users emails must be set public:
Jira Cloud example:
Jira Server example:
[email protected][email protected] [email protected][email protected] [email protected][email protected]
If no specific path to the user mapping file is provided in the configuration file, the program expects it in the location of "workspace" setting. If no file name or path including file name is provided, the import just skips mapping users.
To add support for setting a default user when the Jira user of a task is not found in the user mapping file just add this in the user mapping file:
*=default username -
Define configuration for the migration process.
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Run the export phase.
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Review the export logfile (created for reference and troubleshooting).
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The migration process tracks progress in a journal file. The journal makes it possible to resume a migration, for instance to import items that failed in the import due to configuration issues.
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The export will generate migration items for all Jira issues.
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Run the import phase.
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Review the import logfile (created for reference and troubleshooting).
The options for configuring the migration process is documented here.
Sample configuration files are provided with documentation of typical migration settings in the "samples" folder.
| Sample | Description |
|---|---|
| config-agile.json | Configuration to migrate to an Agile process template |
| config-basic.json | Configuration to migrate to a Basic process template |
| config-scrum.json | Configuration to migrate to a Scrum process template |
- Artifact links (other than git) are not migrated
- Board fields are not migrated