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CSV import of related links, parent, children ...


Michael Forte (2121) | asked Apr 25 '11, 6:20 p.m.
I'm running RTC 2.0.0.2 iFix 6 and I cannot figure out how to import a work item with related links and parent (by storing the content in the CSV file).

Is there a way to import from a CSV file that can build a work item structure and set related link content?

Also, is there a way to export the related links and parent/child ID to CSV or HTML? I don't see it in the column list.

14 answers



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Work Item & UI Commons Team (1.3k1) | answered May 03 '11, 4:23 a.m.
You need to use RTC 3 for that. Links in CSV are not supported in RTC 2.

On 26.04.2011 12:23, mjforte wrote:
I'm running RTC 2.0.0.2 iFix 6 and I cannot figure out how to import a
work item with related links and parent (by storing the content in the
CSV file).

Is there a way to import from a CSV file that can build a work item
structure and set related link content?

Also, is there a way to export the related links and parent/child ID
to CSV or HTML? I don't see it in the column list.

permanent link
Michael Forte (2121) | answered May 05 '11, 5:05 p.m.
That's unfortunate...

I've got another question. When importing from a CSV file, you can choose the custom mapping option but the syntax of that XML seams to not be documented anywhere I can find (at least not fully).

Problem is, I have a CSV file with stories and tasks. The stories have a custom attribute "Story Points." This is a numeric value in the CSV file for each story and blank for the task type. When I import, the tasks are given a "Story Points" attribute and value of 0. Normally the tasks do NOT have a story point value.

Is there any way to create the custom mapping to instruct the import to ignore the "Story Points" attribute for task type work items?

Sample from the XML mapping file:

<attribute sourceId="Story Points" targetId="com.ibm.team.apt.attribute.complexity">

<value sourceId="3 pts" targetId="3"/>
</attribute>

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Work Item & UI Commons Team (1.3k1) | answered May 13 '11, 5:25 a.m.
There is not, I suggest to have 2 CSV files to import from, one with
defects and the other with stories.

On 05.05.2011 11:08, mjforte wrote:
That's unfortunate...

I've got another question. When importing from a CSV file, you can
choose the custom mapping option but the syntax of that XML seams to
not be documented anywhere I can find (at least not fully).

Problem is, I have a CSV file with stories and tasks. The stories have
a custom attribute "Story Points." This is a numeric value
in the CSV file for each story and blank for the task type. When I
import, the tasks are given a "Story Points" attribute and
value of 0. Normally the tasks do NOT have a story point value.

Is there any way to create the custom mapping to instruct the import
to ignore the "Story Points" attributre for task type work
items?

Sample from the XML mapping file:

attribute sourceId="Story Points"
targetId="com.ibm.team.apt.attribute.complexity"
<value sourceId="3 pts" targetId="3"/
</attribute

permanent link
Work Item & UI Commons Team (1.3k1) | answered May 13 '11, 5:25 a.m.
https://jazz.net/library/article/69

On 05.05.2011 11:08, mjforte wrote:
That's unfortunate...

I've got another question. When importing from a CSV file, you can
choose the custom mapping option but the syntax of that XML seams to
not be documented anywhere I can find (at least not fully).

Problem is, I have a CSV file with stories and tasks. The stories have
a custom attribute "Story Points." This is a numeric value
in the CSV file for each story and blank for the task type. When I
import, the tasks are given a "Story Points" attribute and
value of 0. Normally the tasks do NOT have a story point value.

Is there any way to create the custom mapping to instruct the import
to ignore the "Story Points" attributre for task type work
items?

Sample from the XML mapping file:

attribute sourceId="Story Points"
targetId="com.ibm.team.apt.attribute.complexity"
<value sourceId="3 pts" targetId="3"/
</attribute

permanent link
Michael Forte (2121) | answered Jun 08 '11, 10:22 a.m.
There is not, I suggest to have 2 CSV files to import from, one with
defects and the other with stories.


That's what I ended up doing. Made some other observations too...posted on a different forum... (RTC 2.0.0.2 iFix 6)

A couple of weeks ago I completed creating over 1500 work items for an upcoming release using a set of CSV files. Doing this took about 1 day. However, I will note that the majority of my work items to create were similar which made creating the CSV input predominately a copy and paste effort with minimal changes per set of work items. I created epics, stories, and tasks.

Observations:

-- Using a custom mapping file was largely useless due to the severe lack of custom mapping control.

-- The work items do not necessarily get imported in the order you have defined them in the CSV file. This means reordering within the plan will likely be required after import.

-- Importing does not retain special formatting within descriptions (bold, italic, and so on).

-- Using the import function to update work items has, well, spotty success at best.

-- After importing a large number of work items, the plan might fail to load or refresh properly. Saving and refreshing the plan after a bulk import is advised.

-- After importing, you will need to establish relationships and approval requirements (as noted in my previous post).

-- IMPORTANT: Import work items of different types separately or do not specify work item type specific values in the CSV file (such as story points, acceptance criteria, or time estimates).

For example, if you import a story and a task from the same CSV file and the a story point value was specified for the story and left blank for the task, the task will be created with a "custom" page that includes a null or zero story point attribute. Additionally, the task story point attribute will be shown in the plan view if the story points are a field included in the view.
The points are also included in the plan total.

If you accidentally do this, the fix is to change the task (in this example) to a story, save, then change it back to a task. Doing so will remove the erroneous story point attribute and the "custom" page.

I opened an RTC defect for this: https://jazz.net/jazz/resource/itemName/com.ibm.team.workitem.WorkItem/167021 (requires a valid Jazz.net user ID)

permanent link
Michael Forte (2121) | answered Jun 08 '11, 10:24 a.m.
https://jazz.net/library/article/69


Reviewed that article prior to starting this thread. Really, the help available on jazz.net for importing work items and the help for using the custom mapping file are not well developed.

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James Leone (2132) | answered Jul 28 '11, 7:19 p.m.
You need to use RTC 3 for that. Links in CSV are not supported in RTC 2.


Is there anything that describes how to do this in RTC 3 as you alluded it was possible.

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Thomas Loeber (62237750) | answered Jul 30 '11, 8:02 a.m.
JAZZ DEVELOPER
What I ended up doing to find out the format the CSV file had to be in was to do an export of some work items to a csv file and chose additional attributes to export which were links. Like "Depends On", Duplicate Of" and "Duplicated By". Then examined the resulting CSV file.
Do this from the Work Items perspective File->Export->Work Items option.

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A B (881811) | answered Aug 02 '11, 6:50 a.m.
The shared library link says that we can not import attachments using CSV import. Do we have any work around for this?

P.S: We are migrating data from a legacy system to RTC and many workitems in legacy system have attachments with them.

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Work Item & UI Commons Team (1.3k1) | answered Aug 02 '11, 8:34 a.m.
Attachments can only be imported from bugzilla.

On 02.08.2011 12:53, achal wrote:
The shared library link says that we can not import attachments using
CSV import. Do we have any work around for this?

P.S: We are migrating data from a legacy system to RTC and many
workitems in legacy system have attachments with them.

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