Jira Cloud to Jira Cloud migration

[Ron Sanders]

We've recently acquired a company and would like to bring their Jira and Confluence cloud data into our primary Atlassian Cloud instance. I can't see any good recommended steps for this anywhere.

Are there any how-tos, third party tooling, or built in tooling to support this? The only suggestion I've seen in the previous questions here was how to do a destructive upload, ie the uploading data will overwrite the existing data.

I'd prefer not to have that happen since we don't have backups to roll back to like we did on Server last time we did a merger of data.

[Amna Elabbas]

Hi @Ron Sanders

Merging or consolidating multiple cloud sites (or migrating content directly between two cloud sites) is not yet supported in Jira Cloud, but we’re working on it! This is a common request among customers, so our product team is working on improvements in this area. We have a feature request in progress that we’d like to get your vote and input on.

We have a few solid workaround options currently available, as detailed here and summarized below:

• Using the Jira Cloud Migration Assistant on Server: This approach calls for the source site(s) to be brought down to a temporary Jira Data Center instance. You can then use JCMA to merge into the destination cloud site. Please note that there are some limitations as cloud users will have some downtime, there could be post-migration issues with add-ons since app data typically do not migrate, and you will need some experience setting up and managing a self-hosted instance.
• Merging sites in Jira Data Center: Another approach is to merge sites in a temporary Jira Data Center instance and then migrate that combined instance to the cloud. Because Jira Data Center allows you to only import specific projects (unlike Jira Cloud), this allows you to combine entire sites or import only particular projects from one Jira Cloud site to another. The downsides to this method are that cloud users will have downtime, and there could be post-migration issues with add-ons due to the cloud → server → cloud move for the cloud data. Additionally, you will need some experience setting up and managing self-hosted applications.
• Importing issues via CSV: If installing a server application isn’t an option, you can also export and import your issues via CSV. However, this approach also comes with limitations. First, this will only migrate issues, not entire projects or configurations. This method also doesn’t migrate app data or users.

[Prince Nyeche]

Hi @Ron Sanders 

There are multiple approaches to migration. It also depends on which one you think is less risky in your Org based on what you've researched so far. You can opt to use

1. CSV import
2. JSON import
3. JCMA

If you think those methods are time consuming, you can get help from an Atlassian partners to assist with the migration. I think the partner option is much easier as you will be dealing with experts, who has full knowledge of the 3 options above. However just to give you a brief summary of how a cloud to cloud import works if using CSV (as this poses the least risk to your instance), you should start with the following steps in mind

1. Import / create your users into destination instance
2. Import Jira issues (without attachments, issue links) 
   1. Ensure you take note of parent-child relationship (Epic link, Parent Link, sub-task etc)
3. Import attachments separately.
4. Import issue links separately.
5. Watch out for character encoding. Ensure the file you're importing has the right encoding
6. Watch out for datetime format
7. Ensure that you have replicated the configurations of the below from your source instance
   1. Workflow
   2. Notification (if any)
   3. Permission scheme
   4. Screens
   5. Custom fields
   6. Priorities etc

The above will help you get a base start on how you can actually start with the migration.