Moving Work Items to another Project Area

Per Flodin (68●3●3) | asked Sep 04 '09, 10:01 a.m.

Hi!

I try to move a bunch of Work Items from my team to another team in another Project Area.

My procedure:
I select all the Work Items I want to move, and right click "Filed against" -> "Change Filed Against".
Then I click "Move to different Project Area" and select the new Project Area.
I complete the wizard (without any problems mapping any values).

Then only the first Work Item is opened, and I can hit save. But all the other Work Items remain unchanged.

Is this a known limitation in RTC 2.0?

If I follow the same procedure but change "Filed Against" to a Work Item Category in the current Project Area, all Work Items are moved as expected.

Is there another way to move multiple Work Items between Project Areas? Preferably within the client.

BR,
Per

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Patrick Streule (4.9k●2●1) | answered Sep 04 '09, 12:56 p.m.
JAZZ DEVELOPER

Then I click "Move to different Project Area" and select the
new Project Area.
I complete the wizard (without any problems mapping any values).

Then only the first Work Item is opened,
and I can hit save. But all the other Work Items remain unchanged.

Is this a known limitation in RTC 2.0?

Currently, only single items can be moved. There is experimental support
for bulk moves, described in

https://jazz.net/wiki/bin/view/Main/BulkMoveWorkItemsBetweenProjectAreas

See also:
https://jazz.net/jazz/resource/itemName/com.ibm.team.workitem.WorkItem/89392

--
Regards,
Patrick
Jazz Work Item Team

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Per Flodin (68●3●3) | answered Sep 14 '09, 7:26 a.m.

There is experimental support for bulk moves, described in
https://jazz.net/wiki/bin/view/Main/BulkMoveWorkItemsBetweenProjectAreas

Thanks for the info, Patrick! I guess I have three possibilities now:
1. Use this experimental plug-in to move items.
2. Export Work Items to a CSV-file, and import them in the new Project Area.
3. Move one Work Item at a time. (Ouch!)

Is there a fourth way?

I try to understand the limitations of each of these, specifically:
1. Are Work Item attachments moved?
2. Is the Work Item discussion moved?
3. Are links updated to the correct Work Item in the new Project Area?

I hope someone has done this before me... :)

BR,
Per

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David Olsen (523●7) | answered Sep 14 '09, 7:24 p.m.
JAZZ DEVELOPER

PerFlodin wrote:

Thanks for the info, Patrick! I guess I have three possibilities now:
1. Use this experimental plug-in to move items.
2. Export Work Items to a CSV-file, and import them in the new Project
Area.
3. Move one Work Item at a time. (Ouch!)

Is there a fourth way?

I try to understand the limitations of each of these, specifically:
1. Are Work Item attachments moved?
2. Is the Work Item discussion moved?
3. Are links updated to the correct Work Item in the new Project
Area?

I think you are getting confused by the term "move". The work items
aren't really moved anywhere. (You can't move the work items to a
project on a different server, only to a different project on the same
server.) A more accurate description might be that the work items'
parent project is changed. So after moving the work items to a new
project, all the attachments are still there, all the discussions are
still there, all the histories are still there, and all the work item
relationships are still valid without having to be updated.

So option #2 above (exporting to a CSV file and importing) should be
thrown out. That would lose information.

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Per Flodin (68●3●3) | answered Sep 15 '09, 7:30 a.m.

I think you are getting confused by the term "move". The work items aren't really moved anywhere. (You can't move the work items to a project on a different server, only to a different project on the same server.) A more accurate description might be that the work items'
parent project is changed. So after moving the work items to a new project, all the attachments are still there, all the discussions are still there, all the histories are still there, and all the work item relationships are still valid without having to be updated.

I see how this could work for attachments, discussions and histories. But since I try to "move" (note the quotes! :)) a set of Work Items, I want the links to be redirected to the corresponding new linked items.

Example: Item with ID=1 has child ID=2. When I "move" them, ID=1 gets the new ID=17 in the new Project Area, and ID=2 becomes ID=23. After the "move" I want ID=17 to have ID=23 as child.

If I move the items one by one, I don't see how it would be possible to maintain this relationship. I feel I am missing something... :?

So option #2 above (exporting to a CSV file and importing) should be thrown out. That would lose information.

Great info! One down, two to go!

Thanks for your help.

BR, Per

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Patrick Streule (4.9k●2●1) | answered Sep 15 '09, 2:43 p.m.
JAZZ DEVELOPER

Example: Item with ID=1 has child ID=2. When I "move" them,
ID=1 gets the new ID=17 in the new Project Area, and ID=2 becomes
ID=23. After the "move" I want ID=17 to have ID=23 as
child.

If I move the items one by one, I don't see how it would be possible
to maintain this relationship. I feel I am missing something... :?

As David pointed out, the "move" operation works only within a single
repository. So the work item will not get a new ID or UUID (ID have
repository scope, not project scope) on move, and the links stay valid.
Basically, the work item only gets its project area field set to a new
value, and all references of the work items to project dependent values
(like priority, state, etc.) are either mapped to corresponding values in
the other project area or reset.

--
Regards,
Patrick
Jazz Work Item Team

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Per Flodin (68●3●3) | answered Sep 16 '09, 10:45 a.m.

As David pointed out, the "move" operation works only within a single repository. So the work item will not get a new ID or UUID (ID have
repository scope, not project scope) on move, and the links stay valid.

OK, I was missing something: I am not only trying to move between Project Areas, but also from one repository to another! :oops:

I thought the move between Project Areas was the big thing.

OK, please bear with me: What options do I have in this situation? Am I only left with the option to export to CSV and import again?

BR, Per

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