can't find action to import production data to sandbox?

[William Vancrey]

per the documentation here - https://confluence.atlassian.com/cloud/manage-sandboxes-1019402392.html#Managesandboxes-Copydatatoasandbox.

we don't see the "Copy production data" action in jira per the 3rd step - "3. Under Actions in the product table, select Copy production data."

[Matt Tse · Accepted solution]

That's the goal @Darryl Lee

@William Vancrey Darryl's right that you may not yet have the feature enabled. We're still in the midst of rolling it out. I'm more than happy to get your instance fast-tracked if you'd like. Please send me an email at mtse@atlassian.com with your site details. 

Cheers,

Matt

[Darryl Lee]

Exciting!

So question while I've got you @Matt Tse. The docs say:

Currently, you can’t copy apps, app data, media attachments, or Jira Service Management features powered by Opsgenie into a sandbox. 

So, were never able to do this when manually restoring a backup file, but additionally, the restoration process actually blew away any apps that may have been installed.

So, is that still going to be the case with the Copy production data feature?

Don't get me wrong. I'm pleased that I won't have to deal with failed restores because of too many groups that need to be restored (wha!?)

And I'm thankful that most third-party Validators, Conditions, and Post-Functions store their data in the actual XML of Workflows, so those will still "work" after reinstalling the apps. (Tested with JMWE, and I think JWT? Or maybe it was Scriptrunner.)

But for things like @Deviniti Cloud's excellent Extension for JSM (Dynamic and Bundled Fields, and Request Details, oh my!), it is a major bummer that those configurations are "lost" when restoring to Sandbox.

[I fully recognize that trying to preserve app data will in many cases mean having to figure out whether the data is local to Jira or stored in the app vendor's cloud, and if so, then you've got have the app vendors create Sandboxes. Ugggh.

Maybe vendors just need to provide robust configuration import/export functionality. Kind of like you can do with Automation Rules.]

[rikf]

Hey, @Darryl Lee thanks for the feedback. 

  it is a major bummer that those configurations are "lost" when restoring to Sandbox.

I am a senior engineer on the sandbox team and wanted to provide some context on this behaviour.  We have a principal on the sandbox team that a sandbox site should never interfere with the parent site. 

One example where this would be a problem is a messaging app that notifies users when changes are made to an issue. It would be confusing or even alarming if users received notifications for changes made on the sandbox.

There are other pieces of system configuration we also prevent from being copied over such as webhooks for the exact same reason. 

Having a richer story around app migrations is something the team is thinking about. 

Cheers,

Rik

[Darryl Lee]

Hey @rikf (sorry I tagged Matt before) - yeah, absolutely important to not mess with production, so understood about not copying over (or disabling by default) notifications, webhooks, etc.

But hey, can you confirm though that a "Copy" is actually doing a full restore, with the understanding that any app customizations in the Sandbox will be lost?

Oh, speaking of notifications: because Automation uses a different email server than built-in Jira notifications, it would be great if there was a way for notifications to be disabled for Automation Rules as well. (While I love being able to export/import rules, it's a hassle to have to go into each rule that sends an email and plug in a dummy address.)

[rikf]

But hey, can you confirm though that a "Copy" is actually doing a full restore, with the understanding that any app customizations in the Sandbox will be lost?

Yep, so other than the caveats we already mentioned its pretty much a full restore. 

 Oh, speaking of notifications: because Automation uses a different email server than built-in Jira notifications, it would be great if there was a way for notifications to be disabled for Automation Rules as well. (While I love being able to export/import rules, it's a hassle to have to go into each rule that sends an email and plug in a dummy address.)

Not familiar with Automations but we do disable outgoing emails as part of the restore process, so I would be surprised if Automations still sends emails from a Sandbox, have you experienced this behaviour? If so let me know the details and I will look into it. 

[Darryl Lee]

Hi, @rikf - I don't currently have access to a Premium sandbox, but I know last year, I tested this on a Dev instance where I had disabled outgoing emails. (Sandbox had not yet been released). I was able to send myself a test message from this instance.

At the time, I opened a Support Ticket: JST-557361

Unfortunately it looks like the feature request they opened incorrectly frames the problem: "Use Jira Mail Handler also for Jira Cloud"

I don't care if Automation uses a different mail server than Jira. What I care is about being able to disable the email server for Automation. If I have to do that within Automation (for now) that is fine.

Thanks!

[Matt Lane]

@rikf 

What @Darryl Lee said here is also one of our major concerns (aside from ensuring other configurations and automations come across in the copy):

"But for things like @Deviniti Cloud's excellent Extension for JSM (Dynamic and Bundled Fields, and Request Details, oh my!), it is a major bummer that those configurations are "lost" when restoring to Sandbox."

We have large Service Projects with copious amount of dynamic customer forms and fields in our service portals that utilise the Deviniti Extension for JSM.

Thanks for your efforts and engagement on this feature team.

[Emily McCluhan]

I also do not see the option to copy product data to a sandbox. Is this a configuration item that an admin can do, or do I need to contact Atlassian?

[Shruti Narayan]

The import to production feature is not enabled yet in Sandbox and is part of our roadmap for mid next year

Cheers!

[Darryl Lee]

Oh neat! So we don't have to manually do backups and restores anymore?

So I'm guessing you haven't gotten this feature rolled out to you yet:

We're currently rolling out the data copy capability for Jira Software, Jira Service Management, and Confluence sandboxes. This allows all organization admins to copy data into a sandbox from within your organization's administration.

(Last modified on Feb 2, 2021)