Migrate invalid and duplicated users with new JCMA solution!

[#1]

Hi Atlassian Community,

With the Jira Cloud Migration Assistant 1.7.7, we’re bringing a new feature that helps you resolve problems with invalid and duplicated emails that block your migration.

You can use it to:

• Assess your whole user base to find invalid and duplicated email addresses

• View users and their details to identify important accounts that should be fixed in your user directory

• Automatically bulk-fix remaining accounts during migration, for example by merging duplicates, creating new emails, or deactivating users who are no longer needed

All these options should make your migration easier and help you avoid making hundreds of manual updates.

What's the issue with invalid and duplicated emails?

In Server or Data Center, username is the primary identifier, that’s why many users never paid attention to providing valid emails. But, it’s different in Cloud. An email address being the primary identifier must be both valid and unique.

Any email that doesn’t meet these requirements will block your migration.

So can I just fix all invalid and duplicated emails in the assistant?

We recommend that you first use the new feature to identify important accounts, ‘the actual users’, and update them in your user directory.

The automatic fixes in the assistant should be applied to all the remaining users (old, bot, unimportant, or any you choose) whose number is too high to be fixed manually.

Here’s an overview of what you can do in the assistant, with some screenshots:

Invalid email addresses	Duplicated email addresses
Identify invalid users Migrate invalid users as Former users Create new emails, based on: UserID (e.g. useri_10105@atlassian.com) Manually entered by you in the CSV file	Identify invalid users Merge duplicated users Create new emails, based on: UserID (e.g. useri_10105@atlassian.com) Manually entered by you in the CSV file

What will my users look like afterwards?

We can’t fix your users in the source, so any fixes will be applied to the users created in Cloud as you migrate. The final result depends on the option:

• Migrate users as Former users: Preserves the activity of a user (comments, history), but the user is deactivated and anonymized – they’re displayed under the name ‘Former user’, everywhere. Users don’t consume the license, can’t log in, and can’t be restored.

• Merge duplicated users: All users that share an email address are merged into a single account in Cloud. Permissions and activity (comments, history) are also merged into this account. Whoever has access to the email address can log in.

• Create new emails: Replaces the current email with a new one, either pre-generated based on userID or entered by you in the CSV file. Users keep their identity (Charlie Atlassian, and not Former user) and activity. They consume the license, and can log in if they have access to the email address (it needs to be entered by you, not pre-generated).

If you’d like to learn more, see Assess and prepare users for migration.

What's next?

We’re not stopping at Jira. If you’re also looking to migrate Confluence, we’re planning to add this feature to the Confluence Cloud Migration Assistant soon.

UPDATE: October 2023, Fix for invalid and duplicated emails was released in CCMA 3.5.1, you can find more info about it in the blogpost. 

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If you have feedback or questions about fixing invalid and duplicated emails, let us know in the comments.

[Francesco Coppola]

Great feature ! 

[Dave Mathijs]

Bring it on!

[Luis Machado]

Whoooa I can wait to test this out, this is huge.

[Hana Kučerová]

Fantastic!

[Aaron D.]

As soon as we updated to JCMA 1.7.7 we were not able to perform test migrations. Under "Migration Assistant home -> Assess and prepare your users" it shows that all emails are valid and unique. However, when performing the checks for an actual migration, the JCMA shows that we have invalid and duplicate emails. It doesn't show how many, and the pre-migration report doesn't say which emails are invalid or duplicated. I opened a support ticket for this, but haven't received a response.

Edit: We are running Jira Server 8.20.15.

Edit2: Downgrading to JCMA 1.7.5 allowed us to continue with the migration. There are no duplicate or invalid emails in our local database.

[Dave Liao]

@Ben Borecki - I'm here for this!

This is definitely a concern I've brought up on the Enterprise community group, and I even wrote a JAC ticket (ID-240) that I'd think would help with the need to de-duplicate user accounts.

[Ben Borecki]

Thank you for the feedback @Aaron D. - we are investigating your case in the dev team. Did you get the response in the support ticket? 

@[deleted] thanks for sharing broader context! Do you find our solution useful in the cases you're working on? Our solution should help in merging duplicated accounts during Server -> Cloud migration, including migration to an existing cloud instance. However it doesn't support merging duplicate users in cloud (i.e. when merging cloud instances, or doing Cloud -> Cloud migration). Happy to hear how can we improve!

[Aaron D.]

I got a response asking to run some queries looking for invalid or duplicate users in our Server database, but we don't have any of those. The ticket number is PA-144553. We are in the final stages of testing our migration, so we will probably stick with 1.7.5 for now.

[Yevgen]

When can we expect the same for Confluence? There was a dark feature, if I remember correctly, but I can't find it anywhere now.

[Dave Liao]

@Ben Borecki - merging duplicate users when merging Cloud instances would be insanely useful. I just had to shamelessly mention ID-240 since I think it would help with the de-duplication dance we need to do currently.

Anyways, the solution mentioned in this article will ease Jira migrations, and I’m looking forward to seeing this in CCMA too. Definitely curious on timelines like Yevgen is… 👀 

[Ben Borecki]

@Yevgen @Dave Liao let me come back to you with the information regarding timelines or release dates in early 2023. We're working on it :) 

[prajakta_desai]

Hi @Ben Borecki ,

Is there any update on this.

[Ben Borecki]

@Yevgen @Dave Liao @prajakta_desai I am happy to provide an update - in the upcoming CCMA release (March) we're going to release solution to fix invalid and duplicated emails in CCMA! :) 

[prajakta_desai]

Hi @Ben Borecki

We updated JCMA 1.7.5 to JCMA 1.7.7 where we are not able to perform test migrations. Under Assess and prepare your users it shows that all emails are valid and unique. However, when we are performing the checks for an actual migration, the JCMA shows that we have invalid and duplicate emails.
It doesn't show how many users have invalid and duplicate emails.

[Aaron D.]

@prajakta_desai, we had the same issue and downgraded back to 1.7.5 to do the migration. You have to enable a dark feature to skip the plugin update check.

[Johanna Tervala]

Hi @Ben Borecki, I agree this is definitely a positive improvement. Perhaps this is something that you've already planned for the next release, but version 1.7.7 does no longer list any duplicate emails when checking on the proposed migration for any errors (possibly the same applies to invalid email addresses). I can only see the button "Fix duplicated emails" but no information about which emails are duplicated. The problem is, that the new email validation functionality (I assume) checks the situation Jira-wide, but I've selected a limited user scope for my migration. So, instead of fixing just 2 emails, I now have to fix 122 emails, because there is no way of knowing who the problematic user for my specific scope is. Looking forward to getting a solution for this problem. Thanks!

[Yevgen Lasman]

@Ben Borecki do you know the CCMA version where this feature was implemented?

[Ben Borecki]

@Yevgen Lasman the feature to fix invalid and duplicated emails is going to be released in the upcoming CCMA version, in May 2023.

[Yevgen Lasman]

@Ben Borecki do you have a MIG ticket associated to this feature, which I can track?

[Ben Borecki]

@Yevgen Lasman unfortunately, we don't have a MIG ticket to track the work. I'll update the post once the feature is released.

[Yevgen Lasman]

Hello @Ben Borecki

Is there any update on the CCMA version of this feature?

Thank you

[Hana Kučerová]

I don’t migrate Confluence as often as Jira and I was also suprised it is still not there :-(.

[Upasna Bassi]

It would be useful to also get their active/inactive status and last login details also. The details help make decisions on merge easier.

[Ben Borecki]

Hi everyone, I am happy to share that we've started an EAP for fixing invalid and duplicated emails in CCMA. To join the EAP you need to fill the Request form. You'll find EAP details and onboarding instructions in the Request form and this blogpost (the updated part is in the bottom of it).

Update: EAP was closed. The feature is in GA, available from CCMA 3.5.1 version. Here's the community blogpost announcing the change.

[Hana Kučerová]

Great news, thanks!