Track Your Jira Migration in Jira

Where’s the best place to track your Jira migration? It’s the same place you’d track any other strategic company initiative! I always track my work for Jira in Jira. That includes everything from small configuration changes to big projects like migrations and upgrades.

To make it easier for you to manage your migration in Jira, ThinkTilt has added three of my migration templates to their app! The ProForma for Jira app has always been the gold standard for checklists and forms in Jira and now you can use it to manage your migration as well.

73 step Jira migration checklist embedded in an issue with ProForma for Jira

New Templates

The following migration worksheets are now available in the ProForma for Jira template library:

ProForma’s form library includes hundreds of templates to use or customize. Check out these forms in the ProForma demo site or in the ProForma app. Here’s how:

Instructions

Step 1: Install
Install the free or paid ProForma for Jira app in Jira Cloud, Server, or Data Center.

Step 2: Create a Form
To create a form in a Jira project, click Project Settings > Forms. (Or create from the application admin area at: Admin > Manage Apps > Forms.) Next, click the “Create Form” button on the top right.

Step 3: Choose a Template
Choose one of the migration templates. In the form builder, enter “migration” in the search box on the right, as shown. Select a template and make any desired content or setting customizations.

Step 4: Add Form to Jira Issue
Finally, create a Jira issue and add the form to it. Click the “Add Form” button, select the form, and complete the form fields as you plan your migration project.

Want to use the worksheets, but don’t have ProForma? Click here to get started.

If you don’t have my new book, The Ultimate Guide to Jira Migrations: How to migrate from Jira Server to Data Center or Cloud, download it now from the Botron website.

Jira Migration Poll

Please complete the poll to tell us a little bit about your migration plans.

Are you migrating to a different deployment type, changing hosting environments, or merging applications?
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How to avoid the top Jira migration mistakes

As a consultant, I’ve seen a lot of different Jira configurations and helped plan many migrations, merges, and moves. Sometimes the effort is small, like moving a Jira project from one application to another. Other times it’s porting an entire application to a different hosting environment or combining multiple large instances together. Regardless of the scope or effort, organizations often make two big mistakes. They are:

Lack of Preparation

The most common mistake is poor planning. A migration is rarely a quick and easy activity. It requires many hours of discovery, multiple dry runs, and testing.

Organizations often rush to complete the effort without performing enough pre-migration analysis. They don’t take the necessary time for due diligence. When proper analysis isn’t done, impactful setting differences are missed, data is mistakenly omitted, and Jira doesn’t function the way users expect.

Examples

  • When security and permission settings aren’t handled properly, users don’t see data they expect.
  • If email settings aren’t considered, end users may receive more or fewer notifications than expected.
  • If data from third-party apps isn’t migrated, users won’t see information and functionality they are used to.

Remedy

There’s no substitute for a proper upfront analysis and verification before the final event. You need to understand the application configuration intimately, clean up unneeded schemes and settings, archive projects and issues you no longer need, and make sure the application is healthy before migrating any data.

You need to thoroughly test the migration results in a staging application, often multiple times, until everything is perfect.

Lack of Communication

The second most common mistake is poor communication with stakeholders. Before you even start the project, you need to identify the many types of impacted users, how they will be impacted, and what kind of participation is expected from each. The migration effort should never be a surprise to anyone!

Examples

  • The Finance Department wasn’t informed of the migration and had to shuffle money around when license fees increased.
  • Not all data was migrated and the Help Desk team was bombarded with user trouble reports.
  • A Developer logged in to find Jira was not connected to critical build tools.
  • The Compliance Team failed an audit because settings in the new application conflicted with company policy.

Remedy

Just like with any large company strategic initiative, Migration Team members need to a good job communicating and managing expectations. Overcommunicate at each step. At a minimum, users need to verify that their data is as expected in the staging and production environments. Involve users early and often.

To avoid these common mistakes and others, download my free 180 page book, The Ultimate Guide to Jira Migrations: How to migrate from Jira Server to Data Center or Cloud.


Migration Help
Need help migrating or consolidating your Atlassian products? Complete the form below and we'll get right back to you.
Are you migrating to a different deployment type, changing hosting environments, or merging applications?

Announcing The Ultimate Guide to Jira Migrations

Software migrations are fact of life and Jira is no different. No solution fits forever and organizations must pivot as needs and industry capabilities change. As systems evolve, features grow, and infrastructure becomes obsolete migrations and consolidations are inevitable.

In October 2020, Atlassian announced they will stop selling new licenses of their Server products. Customers need to switch to Data Center, migrate to Atlassian-hosted Cloud products, or make alternate plans by Feb 2, 2024. What should you do if you have Jira Server or multiple Jira applications? There’s a lot of great migration information available, but until now, it was all scattered in different locations.

That’s why I teamed up with Atlassian Solution Partner Botron Atlassian Apps to create The Ultimate Guide to Jira Migrations: How to migrate from Jira Server to Data Center or Cloud.

This 180 page book is the master resource to answer all your migration questions and provide a comprehensive plan to follow.

This book includes:

  • best practices for planning a migration or merge,
  • practical tips for preparation, execution, and testing,
  • a 73 step checklist so you don’t miss anything before, during, or after
  • 16 customizable worksheets for planning, analysis, and project management,
  • a quiz for determining the best deployment method for your situation,
  • and expert advice.

Download your FREE comprehensive Jira migration, merge, and consolidation guide from the Botron website.

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