Deleting projects in Jira

Bamini Subramanian October 7, 2019

We want to bulk delete some inactive projects and need some advise:

  1. Is there anything that needs to be done before a project is deleted, prep work?
  2. What "things/objects" get deleted when a project is deleted?
  3. This question is related to #2 question - what happens to schemes associated with the deleted project is shared by other projects that are still active? i.e. issue schemes, workflow schemes, screen schemes etc.

thank you for the help!

Bamini

 

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Joe Pitt
Community Leader
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October 7, 2019

All data; issues and attachments. Schemes, workflows, and such are unaffected. There is no recovery from deleting. I would make a backup and keep it for at least a year. I've been doing IT for over 20 years and at least a dozen times management has asked to see something from the past. Another option is to assign a permission scheme to the project that is blank. If need be, the JIRA admin can make it visible. 

Jack Brickey
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October 7, 2019

agree. i vote to pseudo-archive thru permission scheme, deleting old dashboards, filters, etc. that are no longer needed.

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Andrew Laden
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October 7, 2019

I believe basically just the issues get deleted, as well as the project config in terms of what schemes it uses.

The schemes/screens/workflows etc will not get deleted. Just the config that said that your project used a particular screen/workflow etc.

If there are resources (screens/custom fields/workflows etc) that you know are only associated with that project, you will have to clean them up manually after,

Be careful with custom fields in particular. Screens/workflows are pretty good about telling you if they are in use, and you will not be able to delete them if they are. Not so with custom fields, you will be able to delete them even if then are still in use in screens/workflows etc. So you have to be really sure before you delete one. And if you delete it, you can not restore it. All the data that was in that field is gone.

A sightly safer option is to change the "context" of the field so that it is limited to just the project you are going to delete, and wait a bit and see what breaks. If nothing else breaks, then you may be safe to delete it.

Bamini Subramanian October 7, 2019

Thank you Andrew, that's what I remember. The Jira instance I previously worked on was not complex and deleting a project was simpler, in the sense the associations were done to smaller number of projects and troubleshooting was easier. This instance has over 200 projects and equal number or more schemes. So I am taking every precaution before deleting ANYTHING!

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Capi [resolution]
Marketplace Partner
Marketplace Partners provide apps and integrations available on the Atlassian Marketplace that extend the power of Atlassian products.
October 9, 2019

Hi @Bamini Subramanian, if you're in Server or Data Center and concerned about getting rid of associated schemes and workflows, you can use the bulk deletion that comes with Profields

I wrote a little article to explain precisely that use case:
https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-Software-articles/How-to-prevent-the-propagation-of-unused-project-schemes/ba-p/1018765

And here's the documentation: 
https://confluence.deiser.com/display/PROFIELDS/.Bulk+Operations+v6.5.0

For full disclosure, my employer DEISER is the manufacturer of Profields.

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Bamini Subramanian October 7, 2019

Thank you Joe and Jack. I do plan on removing users first to make sure no one is actually using the project. Even though I've contacted the owners and got their approval. My first step is to remove visibility. I also plan on archiving some of the older inactive projects with data. 

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