moving from JSM Server to JSM Cloud: Assets Cloud import functionality is just a piece of cr##

[Christian Schneider]

Dear Atlassian,

we are on our way to migrate from our Jira Server infrastructure (Jira, Assets (Insight), Confluence) into the Cloud. You basically force your clients to do so. (BTW: cloud licenses are 30% (!) higher, than our Server licenses.)

In our JSM, we heavily rely on Assets. We do have 4 source systems providing 30+ objecttypes into Assets. In our Jira Server version, this works perfectly fine, in cloud, this is just a piece of crap. I have invested 60+ hours to figure out, to find the best way to get data into the cloud and I have paid ~10'000 USD to our Enterprise Service Bus Integration Partner to program the interfaces between our source systems and the Assets Rest API. We are not yet finished and not yet up and running.

The documentation of the Rest API is a good start, but there are a lot of very basic information missing. (Assets external imports workflow (atlassian.com))

We stumble accross one bug after another. This is very, very annoying. Our cloud move project is just a big waste of time.

List of bugs affecting us:

• [JSDCLOUD-11727] Partial data imported as part of Discovery imports - Create and track feature requests for Atlassian products.
• [JSDSERVER-11099] Insight Discovery export to Cloud, when having a Discovery Agent Result - Create and track feature requests for Atlassian products.
• [JSDCLOUD-11162] Insight Discovery import of a large Scan Results zip does not work - Create and track feature requests for Atlassian products.
• [JSDCLOUD-11178] Insight external import to run as the generator of the OAuth token - Create and track feature requests for Atlassian products.
• [JSDCLOUD-11890] Sending a PATCH request to Insight's External Imports will clear the “Filter data source by IQL“ setup on Object Type mappings - Create and track feature requests for Atlassian products.
• [JSDCLOUD-11891] Add ability to set "Filter data source by IQL" via REST on External Imports - Create and track feature requests for Atlassian products.

I fully understand that Atlassian has a very glossy marketing and that you would like to have customers, who live for your products. I was one of those - not anymore.

I don't want an appology, just stop your glossy marketing, get your ressources together and fix those bugs.

Chris, a very unhappy customer

EDIT: another feature request:

• [JSDCLOUD-11982] Add the ability to use existing icons for object types using External Import - Create and track feature requests for Atlassian products.

EDIT2: this is a must for us:

• [JSDCLOUD-9878] Provide Insight Macro for Confluence Cloud - Create and track feature requests for Atlassian products.
• [MIG-1168] Support the migration of Insight for Jira data - Create and track feature requests for Atlassian products.

EDIT3: Workflow missing config values or references - JCMA Error

• Our workflows have lots of post functions and validators. All validators, which include Isight custom fields block the JCMA. I consider myself a Jedi and I am not very keen on using Dark Side Features to solve this.
• Workflow missing config values or references - JCMA Error | Atlassian Cloud | Atlassian Documentation

EDIT4:

• [JSDCLOUD-12022] Accessing Asset configuration button under Object Schema gives 404 error - Create and track feature requests for Atlassian products.

EDIT5:

• The Discovery Agent Installer still installs two applications. At least, the names are now different, but it is still not clear, what they second application is for. The update does not properly remove previous version of the Agent and it is not clear on how to install the Agent on 1000+ devices via SCCM.
  [JSDSERVER-10836] Installing the Discovery Agent on Win10 results in Two applications installed. - Create and track feature requests for Atlassian products.

EDIT6:

• [JSDSERVER-7665] Option to delete the pattern files remotely from all machines if they will not be used - Create and track feature requests for Atlassian products.
• [JSDSERVER-12052] Discovery Agents - ScanInterval in minutes - Create and track feature requests for Atlassian products. (This one is already solved, but the version was withdrawn -> solution not yet available to me...)

EDIT7:

• [JSDCLOUD-12083] External imports: Allow mapping of children object types in multiple import configurations - Create and track feature requests for Atlassian products.

EDIT8:

• yet another bug, this time around objecttype attributes: [JSDCLOUD-11528] Adding an object type attribute with empty Default type caused attribute UI not loading - Create and track feature requests for Atlassian products.

EDIT9: WTF?! Why cant I use ADFS for user provisioning? [ACCESS-1106] Allow for User Provisioning via ADFS - Create and track feature requests for Atlassian products.

[Alex Koxaras _Relational_]

Hi @Chris Schneider (Chris)

First of all let me start by saying that I understand your frustration. Second of all, let me tell you that I'm not with Atlassian, and that you posted your complain on the community and not directly to Atlassian's support. And I don't mean that this is a bad thing to do, but there is a chance that you may not receive an answer from them :/

From the bugs you are referring, two of them are in progress, one is on the short term backlog and for the rest three impact is gathering. So I would say that 50% of these bugs are on the way. Having said that, you know that no piece of software (except games maybe) is perfect. They all have flows and limited functionalities and/or missing functionalities that we would like to have.

Concerning the licenses and specifically:

BTW: cloud licenses are 30% (!) higher, than our Server licenses.)

I find it reasonable, since you will not have any more server infrastructure, maintenance, IT crew etc. In the long run, cloud license are cheaper imo.

May I ask why didn't you go to DC and you have chosen cloud? Is it because of the price license? If cloud had such limitations for you and your company, you should have examine only moving/obtaining a DC license.

[Christian Schneider]

Hi @Alex Koxaras _Relational_

thank you for your comments. I fully understand that this is a community forum. I have several support tickets open with Atlassian support. The support team is a great help.

I feel, as if my struggle is just not reaching top management. This is just showing my frustration and I am sure, I am not the only one. Anybody is welcome add their comments, so that Atlassian realizes that they need to move now.

We only have 50+ users, DC licenses starts at 500 users. Price for DC is out of question.

Atlassian forces us to get into the cloud. I expected the functionality to be the same, as it is in the server version. It is not. Either they extend the server support or they speed up bug fixes.

Chris

[Alex Koxaras _Relational_]

Chris,

The functionality can't be the same since cloud app might not be built the same way the server was built. And since they have to make sure that no breach is going to happen, security for Cloud is rather strict. The latter means that vendors (former Insight, aka "Assets" now), have to create apps with limited functionalities. I too had hard times understanding this, and to be honest, not having "Behaviors" on Scriptrunner cloud was a huge blow for me.

Without telling the opposite, is insight such a crucial factor on your daily work? Can you work on issues despite the bugs and imperfections that Jira Cloud, or Assets currently have?

Concerning the:

I feel, as if my struggle is just not reaching top management. 

I totally understand you and can place myself on your shoes. But keep in mind that this decision is final and irreversible. This decision took place almost 2 years ago (it could be more, but it started two year ago) and Atlassian try to make it as smooth as possible. After announcing it, all customers could have addressed this issue internally and decide if staying on Atlassian's platform was the best choice or not. I mean, noone is forcing anyone stay on Jira and can as well stop using it the very next day. There are alternates to Jira which anyone could use and I very well know that changing your daily routine in a huge pain in the @$$, but it's only temporarily.

[Christian Schneider]

Well, for every bug, there is a workaround. This makes it more complicated to implement and to manage it in the long run. Infrastructure costs might decline, but the amount of time I have to manage things will rise. Cloud will not be cheaper.

Most of all, the qualitiy of service for my internal customers will be lower, as it used to be.

In the end, the pain of changing the product is probably bigger, then living with the lower quality of Assets Cloud. This is an evaluation, my management has to deside on.

[Alex Koxaras _Relational_]

 Infrastructure costs might decline, but the amount of time I have to manage things will rise. Cloud will not be cheaper.

I see what you mean. This could be a case, but not as the default rule. I understand that removing certain Assets' functionalities your time (and probably your colleagues as well) could increase because you would have to do extra work and/or manual work. This is something that your management has to take into consideration as well.

Changing products can require a huge amount of effort from the stakeholders' side, as well as from the end users. Before doing so, evaluate their roadmap as well and watch for any such movement (end of server licenses etc).

As Alex I totally get the way you feel. You are not the only one, since I've seen a lot of disappointed customers. But on the other hand, I've seen extremely happy customers who were satisfied by what Jira offers, and not only because they had a taste of what the competitors would offer (in case of product, support, community, new features, bug fixes etc).

In the end I would work closely with your solution partner to find certain workaround. And if I were you I would pitch the idea to the management to invest on data center.

[Andreas Krupp]

Hello Alex,

From a Partner perspective in this community, I think we all accept that software has bugs and limitations - however, what I find increasingly difficult is to discover serious bugs where configuration data is overwritten (where it is not supposed to be) and that imported data is incomplete.

For a CMDB it is essential to be reliable and scalable, and I think "we", as a community should spend more time commenting and voting on those critical issues so that they get prioritized.

And to add one issue to the list:

- If you want to update a User-Type Attribute on Insight Objects, you need to work through the following workaround, because you map a user through their Email Address: https://confluence.atlassian.com/jirakb/update-user-type-attribute-of-an-insight-objects-using-automation-after-import-1141505554.html

- And maybe you have guessed this, but this workaround is impacted by "Rate-Limiting" - so if you have user directory of 1000+ users, syncing all the changes might take hours.

To qualify this "feature" and "workaround" I leave to users.

[Alex Koxaras _Relational_]

Hi @Andreas Krupp 

I understand what you are saying and I find it an extremely good idea to have the community upvoting on a regular basis the most important bugs/suggestion for Atlassian Products. That would be a real neat thing to do!

From the other hand, what I fear about this is that we could mess things up and vote for something that it's not of importance, in favor of other bugs which could be priority. 

If the community accepts this idea, we have to think through it and blueprint the hell out of it and make it a safe procedure.

Concerning the issue with updating insight objects, although I understand your point of view. The best way to do that (if you are afraid for the service limits) is to contact Atlassian's support directly. They will not hesitate to help you and guide you through this procedure. And for sure this is a limitation from Atlassian's side.

[Dorothea Linneweber]

Hi @Chris Schneider 

First of all, thank you for taking the time to share. Any feedback - positive or negative - helps us to identify opportunities to improve the product. It sounds like you had a really frustrating experience and that is not what we want for our customers.

Secondly, you are absolutely right, there currently are a number of discrepancies between server and cloud. Some - as @Alex Koxaras _Relational_ rightly pointed out - are due to the inherent differences between the two, others, as we are still looking to close those gaps. Whilst not all customers are impacted by this, we understand that those who are, are facing some serious challenges in their migration journey.

Now, the good news is that our team is growing rapidly, and as we do, we're looking to accelerate closing some of those gaps. In order to do so efficiently, we are looking for help from our customers in sharing their experience - so again, thank you.

The migration journey from server/DC to cloud, as well as improving our documentation are active areas of focus for us at the moment, and we'd love to dive deeper into your thoughts on what we can do to improve - both in the short, as well as the mid-long term. If you're interested in this please book a time in our office hours via the link below, or send me an email so we can find a timezone-friendly slot outside of this. 

https://calendar.app.google/6Y7SicTAvkTq8qbE8 

Thanks again,

Doro Linneweber

Product Manager | Jira Service Management, Assets (Cloud)

[Nino Enukidze]

Hello, @Chris Schneider 

You can migrate Assets (previously Insight) object schemas from the server instance to the target Jira Cloud instance using the add-on Insight Assets Backup & Migration.

Please see the following article for further information: https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-Service-Management/How-can-Assets-be-migrated-from-Jira-Data-Center-to-Cloud-or/td-p/2382324

Contact Twinit support if you have any additional queries or ideas.

Best Regards,

Nino

[Christian Schneider]

Hi @Nino Enukidze

thank you very much for that news.  Its is a bit late for our migration, but might be helpful for others.

Unfortunately, there are still some 60+ bugs and feature requests left, that affect our daily work. Cloud offers one or two very cool features, but it also misses a lot of loved features from Server version...

Chris