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Migrating with the Jira Cloud Migration Assistant (JCMA)


Migrating with the Jira Cloud Migration Assistant (JCMA)

This information is correct as of November 2021

JSU Automation Suite for Jira Workflows (JSU) is compatible with Atlassian’s Jira Cloud Migration Assistant (JCMA) for app migrations. This means that you can automatically migrate most of your JSU workflow automations from your Server or Data Center instance to your Cloud instance.

It is highly recommended that you test your migration on a staging Cloud instance so you can become familiar with the results, before proceeding with a migration of your Server or Data Center app data to your production Cloud instance.

You should also review our feature parity page, particularly the references to Screen Security Configuration on Jira Cloud and the behavior of the Perform As User feature in JSU Cloud.


How to navigate to the Jira Cloud Migration Assistant add-on

 

It is recommended to always use the latest available version of the Jira Cloud Migration Assistant (JCMA) add-on by Atlassian. As of writing the latest version is 1.6.3. You can track updates to JCMA through Atlassian’s app migration Changelog.

To begin preparing your instance for a migration to Jira Cloud, you first need to navigate to the Migrate to Cloud section of the Jira administration settings.

  1. Select Administration > System.

  2. Under IMPORT AND EXPORT in the left sidebar, select Migrate to cloud. The Migration Assistant home page is displayed.

The Migration Assistant home page displayed in Jira.

Before you can commence a migration, you need to complete the steps outlined in the JCMA tool to assess and prepare your apps. This guide will give a brief overview of how to do this with JSU. It is highly recommended to become familiar with Atlassian’s Jira Cloud Migration Assistant | Atlassian Support while preparing your instance and other apps for a Cloud migration.


How to include JSU in your app-assessment

  1. Assess your apps - you will need to select which apps you want to include in your migration. All apps must have a decision status selected before you can proceed to the next step.

    1. Select View app assessment.

    2. Find JSU in the list of apps and select Needed in Cloud from the Status dropdown.

    3. When you’re happy to proceed, select Done.

      Asses your apps page in Jira with JSU set to Needed in Cloud.

       

  2. Prepare your apps - next, you need to link your Jira Cloud instance to the JCMA tool via the prompts.

    1. Select Begin preparing on the Prepare your apps panel on the Migration Assistant home page.

    2. Select the required destination Cloud site then select Choose cloud site to link your chosen cloud instance.

    3. Select Continue to navigate through the remaining preparatory steps, then click Done.

      The Choose your destination cloud site prompt for JCMA.

       

  3. Migrate your data

    1. When you are ready, on the Migrations Assistant home page, go to the Migrate your data panel and select Create a migration to begin your migration activity. If you have already performed a migration, you can select Create a migration on the Migrations dashboard page.

    2. Select Connect to cloud.

      Overview of the migration steps for JCMA as described on this page.

       

    3. Select the Choose what to migrate option.

    4. Edit the options as required. For the Apps option, select All to ensure JSU is included in your migration activity.

    5. Select Run pre-migration checks.

    6. The migration assistant displays the results of all the pre-migration checks. Review any possible issues by expanding the relevant check.

    7. new Under Apps, select View app vendor checks.
      JSU has implemented two app vendor checks to help your JSU data migrations run smoothly.
      JSU’s vendor check is compatible with JCMA versions earlier than 1.9.5, or with version 1.9.14 and later. See App vendor checks | Atlassian Support to learn more about app vendor checks.

    8. Follow the steps to resolve any issues before proceeding, or download a report to help with post-migration cleanup as described in the next sections.

       

    9. Select Continue to move to the Review stage of your migration, then when you are ready, select Run to commence your Cloud migration which includes your JSU app data.


Reviewing the status of your migration

After starting the migration, you can review it as it progresses by returning to the Migrations dashboard. Your Jira data will be migrated first, followed by your app data.

Sample migration progress status.

Click View details to see more information on the migration activity.

Sample migration progress status.

The app-migration stage is the last step of the migration activity. When this stage has been completed you can expand to see more information, including a link to the JSU Cloud Post-Migration Report.

Sample migration completion status showing link to post migration report.

The post-migration report will show a summary of INCOMPLETE if any warnings or errors were found during the migration. JSU relies on the JCMA tool to move across any workflows, resolutions, transitions etc. to configure your workflow rules correctly on your cloud site.


Post-migration report and cleanup

Click the link in the expanded section to open a new tab with your post-migration report for this specific migration. To view any of your post-migration reports on your cloud instance go to Settings Apps > JSU Automation Suite for Jira Workflows > Reporting.

The JSU migration reports page.

The examples on this page were created using our original beta Migration report.

The expanded view of the migration report for the sample migration described on this page.

 

From January 2023 our Migration report contains additional details and features to make it easier for you to identify and resolve any problems with your workflows post-migration. You can see an example of the new report in our release documentation.

The report now includes:

  • The rule name, workflow, and transition with links to take you directly to the appropriate pages in your Jira instance.

  • Sortable columns to help you organize the issues in a way that suits you best

  • A Resolved checkbox to help you keep track of problems as they are fixed

Looking at the post-migration report, we can see there are two warnings reported: one Missing resolution and one Missing transition.

These are because JSU couldn’t find a specific resolution and transition it needed to configure some features correctly on the cloud instance. This specific scenario is likely to be caused by one of three scenarios:

  • The JCMA tool didn’t migrate that specific resolution and transition for unknown reasons

  • The JCMA tool didn’t migrate that specific resolution and transition because they already exist on the Cloud site but with different IDs

  • The JCMA tool migrated that specific resolution and transition but in doing so gave them new IDs which don’t match the Server configuration

At this stage we can say that JSU has successfully performed an app-migration to the Cloud.

All that remains is the specific clean up of workflow rules relating to any warnings identified


Let’s look at the workflow rules side-by-side on both platforms: how they are originally on our Server instance, and how they look after being migrated to the Cloud instance.

Server

The post function summary from the server instance described on this page.

Our server workflow contains three JSU post-functions, one of each for Linked Transition, Clear Field Value and Update Any issue Field.

Cloud

The post function summary from the cloud instance described on this page.

All three have been successfully migrated to the Cloud, but the Linked Transition has a visible error.

Our Cloud post function is missing a value for the Transition field, while the Server field contains the “Done” transition.

The Missing transition warning from the post-migration report, showed that a transition with ID “31” couldn’t be found. This is likely the missing field, so let’s fix it.

First, look at the specific configuration of this post function on the Server instance compared to the Cloud instance.

Server

The Linked Transition configuration from the source Server instance.

Cloud

The Linked Transition configuration from the destination Cloud instance.

On your cloud instance, edit the misconfigured post function and ensure the correct values are added to the Transition values (in our case the same workflow with transition “Done” and ID “31”) and then click Update to save your changes.

The post function summary from the cloud instance showing the resolved error described on this page.

After updating the post function, the error no longer appears. After you’ve resolved all issues on your workflow, don’t forget to publish your workflow.

The publish workflow confirmation popup in Jira.

You’ve now successfully migrated to Cloud with all of your JSU workflow rules included!


Feedback wanted!

How did your migration go? Was this guide helpful? Still have questions?

Please feel free to contact us through our support channel and we’ll be happy to assist.

 

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