Data import from TFS to JIRA

[Deleted user]

We are trying to get data out of a TFS instance into Jira for the purpose of demo’ing Jira to some of our technology executives. I want to convince them to move off of TFS. Everything I’ve found so far on this subject, whether it’s Atlassian, MS or stackoverflow, advises against doing this at the “raw” database table level and instead recommends using the TFS API to get the data out and the Jira API or wizard to import. That’s all good, no problem writing some code. But there’s a piece in the middle for mapping to explain that I can not find anywhere. Is there anyone in Atlassian who has done this and can help me? Thanks.

[Magdalena Zacharczuk · Accepted solution]

Hi Puja,

Like Nic, I can't speak for Atlassian people, but I think we may have a workaround for your problem. There is a plugin called TFS4JIRA, which enables TFS/JIRA users to automatically view their project- or issue-associated TFS check-ins in JIRA and facilitates effortless synchronization of changes made to the issues and work items between JIRA and TFS. You can find it here:

https://marketplace.atlassian.com/plugins/com.spartez.jira.plugins.bork.tfs4jira

Although this tool does not specifically solve the “export/import” problem you have described (this is actually something which currently is on the TFS4JIRA development roadmap: https://jira.spartez.com/browse/TFS-72), I guess it could still be of help to you: you could synchronize your existing TFS with JIRA and put your demo together without migrating anything just yet.

Hope this helps.

[ahmad azfar masut]

Hey @Magdalena Zacharczuk, quick question here. Looking at your plugins, it seems that this is more of synchronization of JIRA with TFS, an not an import tool. And no such import functionality from TFS towards JIRA is available. Can you verify this? Thanks!

[Magdalena Zacharczuk]

Hey @Azfar Masut, here's a quick answer .

TFS4JIRA is a two-way synchronization/import tool, so change updates do work both ways: from TFS to JIRA, as well as from JIRA to TFS. You can find all the import-related information in the TFS4JIRA documentation. If you need any assistance, feel free to get in touch with support@spartez.com.

Hope this helps!

[Azfar_Masut]

Thanks! Tested and we've successfully migrated our TFS projects to JIRA, eventhough there are some limitation on what can be migration(which we can sort it out with some scripting helps).

Great tool! Thanks!

[Sanjay Upadhyay]

limitations like - history and certain type of fields can’t be migrated, comments and attachment size is limited. TFS4JIRA is helpful? 

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

I can't speak for Atlassian people, but I've done a couple of TFS -> Jira imports.

I didn't really have any technical problems doing this, as the basic idea was "we stop using TFS on Friday, TFS admins export data, Nic imports it into Jira, we use Jira from Monday". The difficult bit was trying to map the TFS data on to Jira. Which is not really much of a technical task, it's all about getting your users to tell you what they want.

What you need to do is talk to the users, find out what TFS data they want to see in Jira and then you can work out how to export and import it.

I'm afraid the short answer to your question is "Yes, but you need to do the work for yourself, because we don't know your data"

[Boyan Angelov (Nemetschek Bulgaria)]

@Nic Brough, you say you did a couple of such imports. Is it possible to transfer attachments, issue relation links, comments history, and if yes - how did you do it?

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

That can be a bit more complex. The imports I did were from CSV that were extracted from TFS somehow. CSV didn't support most of the more complex fields at the time, so they were done with Jelly after the CSV had imported. The worst one was the history, which was either dropped, added as a comment rather than a full history (SQL was discussed, but decided against as too risky)

[Boyan Angelov (Nemetschek Bulgaria)]

Well, I feared it was something like that. So back to the drawing board, I will explore more options and if we eventually do it, will post here how.

[RAJASHEKHARAYYA HIREMATH]

Hi, we are doing the same Import data import from TFS to JIRA Cloud, but having issues while mapping Work Items to Jira's Issue Types

could you please help in identifying equivalent values for Jira  here?

---

{
"id": ,
"rev": ,
"fields": {
"System.Id":
"System.AreaId":
"System.AreaPath":
"System.TeamProject":
"System.NodeName":
"System.AreaLevel1":
"System.Rev":
"System.AuthorizedDate":
"System.RevisedDate":
"System.IterationId":
"System.IterationPath":
"System.IterationLevel1":
"System.IterationLevel2":
"System.WorkItemType":
"System.State": "New",
"System.Reason": "New",
"System.AssignedTo":
"System.CreatedDate":
"System.CreatedBy":
"System.ChangedDate":
"System.ChangedBy":
"System.AuthorizedAs":
"System.PersonId":
"System.Watermark":
"System.Title":
"Microsoft.VSTS.Common.StateChangeDate":
"Microsoft.VSTS.Common.StackRank":
"WEF_vvvvv_System.ExtensionMarker":
"WEF_xxxxx_Kanban.Column": "New",
"System.Description": " "
},

---

thanks,

[taljaber]

We've just put a how-to video together to demo the process of migrating from TFS to JIRA. http://youtube.com/watch?v=HHgW-ocvwXg

[Brian Spence]

The demo looks like a regular CSV import, does the "Microsoft TFS" option on the import wizard give you anything over a standard CSV import?

Specifically, I'm struggling with the data structure in TFS allowing 3+ tiers (e.g. Product Backlog Item --> Bug --> Task) whereas JIRA is just Parent-->Sub-Task.

I'm also struggling with how to populate certain required custom fields, and TFS4JIRA doesn't allow for validation to be disabled. It also doesn't allow you to define default values for unmapped fields.  There are hack arounds, but looking for something clean.

[taljaber]

Hi Brian, 

Thanks for your comment. Yes, the importer will give you options depending on the structure of your CSV. I am not sure about 3 levels deep (tiers), but you could try. I found this link to be useful https://answers.atlassian.com/questions/12280942, check it out and let me know if you still have any questions. 

Best,

Tareq