The best way to merge two JIRA projects?

Question

At my job we currently have two Kanban projects - Refund Project #1 and Refund Project #2. They have similar characteristics and fields but it's not a 100% match.

Since I am currently in the process to create another project board where issues for both Refund types can be raised, I am now wondering if it's better to start with a completely fresh project board or try and merge the previous two projects into this new one.

Although I am fairly new to JIRA, my idea is to start completely fresh on this new board while ensuring that the previous two boards tickets and all the corresponding information is saved. What do you think?

If we decide to go with the method that I believe is the most suitable, what would be the best way to ensure that the data from the two previous boards is saved in an easy-to-digest Excel / CSV sheet? Thank you.

Tom Lister_fo1j4e · Answer

Hi @Ken Uehling

You may well get issues with project differences that need local knowledge to handle.

Differences may be in workflow statuses that can't be matched, issue types that aren't present, fields not in context for project. You will need to assess based on your JIRA setup.

When you move an issue, your choose the new project. If there is no issue type match you have a dropdown to select a type to use. Based on that info, JIRA will ask to specify   a new status in the target projects workflow if no matches.

Data won't be lost but views in target may not give you access.

You could do some alignment of source and target projects to help smooth the way.

Reading this first may help

https://confluence.atlassian.com/jiracoreserver073/moving-an-issue-861257345.html

Ken Uehling · Answer

Thank you for your answer, Tom.

If I merge issues from a "Business Project" to a "Software Project" - will there be any compatibility issues?

Tom Lister_fo1j4e · Answer

Hi @Ken Uehling

Are you trying to save the old project data as CSV before moving on?

You can select all issues in a project and use the Export/CSV (All Fields option).

You could also experiment with creating your new project and 'Moving' issues from original project into new project. You will be asked to choose field values/states where there is no match.