Migrating workitems (with History and attachments)

VK L (817●7●147●159) | asked Jun 04 '12, 12:55 a.m.

Hi All,
I need to migrate workitems from one project area to another. Following are the 2 options that i thought of:

1. Export and import workitems - later archive the old project area - History cannot be exported?
2. Move workitems to another project area

Which is the best option? I am looking at moving workitems from multiple project areas to 1 common project area.

Thanks.

2 answers

Most liked answers|Newest answers ↑|Oldest answers

permanent link

Michael Stricklen (39●4●7) | answered Jun 04 '12, 10:27 a.m.

I'm on a team that does a lot of work item migrations, and we have to preserve attachments and dependencies. To support those requirements, we've adopted an open-source EDI tool called Spoon that's included with the open-source Pentaho BI solution. My team is supported by a small dev team that's done significant work building transformations and data adapters to make this work. If you've got a few devs handy, that's one way to go.

However, if you've got some devs handy, another way to go is to leverage the APIs to build your own ETL tool. I've heard some of our devs say that they'd go that route if they could do it over again.

Before you ask, I'm sorry but I cannot provide the tool. If you haven't looked at TaskTop Sync, perhaps you should. It can get you a good way down the data integration path, and it's commercially available.

permanent link

David Olsen (523●7) | answered Jun 04 '12, 1:08 a.m.
JAZZ DEVELOPER

If there aren't a lot of work items, and if the two project areas are on the same server, then the best option is to move the work items from the old project area to the new project area. This preserves the history and preserves most of the fields that are in common between the work item schemas in the two project areas. The drawback is that work items need to be moved one at a time. There isn't a way to move a large number of work items at once. (At least there wasn't a way in the past. I don't know if such a feature has been added to RTC.)

If you have a large number of work items to be moved, or if the project areas are on different servers, then export/import is the best solution that I know of.

David Olsen | IBM Rational | Jazz Process Team

Comments

VK L commented Jun 04 '12, 1:42 a.m.

Thanks David, But does import/export preserver history and attachments? and is it possible to move workitems in large using Plugin?

VK L commented Jun 04 '12, 2:42 a.m.

Everytime, When i move a workitem, it ends up asking to save the item. Is this the way it works?

David Olsen commented Jun 04 '12, 10:15 a.m.

JAZZ DEVELOPER

I have never used exported or imported work items myself, so I can't answer authoritatively. But I'm pretty sure export/import does not preserve history, and I would be surprised if it preserves attachments.

Some time ago, a plugin was written to do a mass move of work items between project areas on jazz.net. So I know that it is possible. But I have no idea whether or not such a plugin is available today, or how to write one if it isn't.

David Olsen commented Jun 04 '12, 10:16 a.m.

JAZZ DEVELOPER

Asking you to save the work item when you move it to a new project area is expected. Some of the work item's fields may be forced to change as part of the move, and you are given the opportunity to fix them up before committing the change.

It's all about the answers!

Related questions

Migrating workitems (with History and attachments)

2 answers

Your answer