JIRA to JIRA Issue Copy plugin does not work after being installed

[jinchengjiang]

The JIRA to JIRA Issue Copy plugin does not work after being installed in two different jira instances.This plugin need these two jira instances linked togerther by AppLinks.But even when this link has been configured,'Remote Copy' button does not appears in under the 'More Actions' tab.So the we can't Copy issues between these two instances by this plugin yet.

[Lathrop [PSU]]

Roy,

Nice to talk to you again! This plugin would be great if integrated into JIRA 6.2. The plugin is very nice but does lack some, what I would consider some basic functions. Here is what we would like to see.

1. Bulk Copy: We need to be able to move groups of 1,000.

2. Post Functions: It is always frustrating with actions available in JIRA are not available via a post function.

3. Permission Controlled: This ability should be able to be controlled in the permission scheme which allows group and role restrictions.

4. Authentication Support: We are required to put all tools behind a layer of AUTH so that all tools can be SSO. Currently we have to turn our AUTH off to copy tickets between servers. This prevents us from allowing this function to anyone but server admins. (This is a larger issue with many Atlassian products as well. I'm hoping further Enterprise development will address this downstream.)

5. Documentation: Usually the docs are great but no docs exist for this currently.

6. Support: I was really suprised to find at this was developed by Atlassian but is not supported. That seems wrong. No support for third-party plugins is one thing but Atlassian should always support its own products unless it is marked for end of life-cycle.

[Lathrop [PSU]]

Started using JIRA to JIRA Copy more and will add the following to my list above.

This tool needs to be a combination of the Copy, Move, & Import features. Below is a list of features from other tools that need to in JIRA to JIRA Copy.

Import Options:

• Allow user to map fields. This might only be available when a matching data field in not found in the new project.
• Allow user to save configuration settings to use again.

Move Options:

• Prompt user when fields do not exist in new project. (Allow field mapping)
• Prompt user when workflow status does not match. (Allow status mapping)

Others:

• Add support for other Atlassian product fields (JIRA Agile). Allow us to retain the Epic or Sprint names even though the linking function will fail. This makes it much easier to fix the data after import rather than looking at the tickets in the old system.
• Is it possible fix linked tickets after import? Ex. When you move a ticket from project to project JIRA remembers this relationship. A quick search for an old ticket key will take you to the same issue with the new key. Can we do something link that for imported linked tickets? Or can we do one better and update the links to adjust for their new issue keys? This is horribly manual and time consuming currently. It can be a real punishment for those projects that use the tool fully.

[Lathrop [PSU]]

Time Fields:

This should be able to copy the data in the work log tab as well as the orginal estimate, remaining estimate, and time spent fields.

[Admin]

Even after enabling the applinks still the plugin does not work. Once i click the remote copy, i can only see the local JIRA projects but no the remote JIRA projects?  Can anyone help on how to configure this plugin??

[Bartosz Gatz]

Hey Lathrop.

Sorry for delayed answer. Let me relate back to your comments.

1. Archiving is a separate topic, not targeted directly by JIRA to JIRA Issue Copy plugin. We do plan to introduce the bulk operations at some point, but we did not think of any type of automation related to post functions, to be honest. Our primary goal for the plugin right now is to make sure it can be used in all cases (and there are a few today where it exits with an error message) and that it can also be used to move issues. That also assumes we will be blening it into JIRA and through that process surpress the existing "clone" and "move" actions.

2. As I said, this plugin is supported to some extent. We fix the critical bugs, but we will not support the plugin completely until we introduce the missing functionality and merge it into JIRA plugin bundle.

3. The support statement is clear: "this plugin is not supported". We have also changed it to Atlassian Labs, so that it is not confusing. There are other not supported Atlassian Labs plugins available for download. Thanks for the suggestion of the support statement for 3rd party plugins. I'll pass it on to our marketplace team.

Bartek.

[Bartosz Gatz]

Thanks for the great feedback, Lathrop.

As Roy has indicated already - our plans are to get this plugin integrated into JIRA core at some point of time. This is also when we will heavily invest into closing the gaps that you have mentioned with bulk copy support being on top of the list.

Can I ask you to elaborate a bit more on the post functions? What is your expectation there in relation to bulk copy?

Answering your question related to documentation and support: I understand your points. Let me explain how we ended up here. The work on this add-on was divided into several stages and is not complete yet. Throughout the planning of relelases 6.1 and 6.2 we have identified other projects to be more important from our stategy perspective and therefore (reluctantly) decided to postpone the work on JIRA to JIRA issue copy until later. But at the same time we wanted to give even the early functionality to our users as soon as possible. As a consequence we decided to keep the add-on as an Atlassian free/unsupported add-on until we find resources to finish the work on it. Even though it is not complete and is missing a proper documentation we believe that many of our customers can benefit from it even today. Call it an extreme manifestation of our Agile approach to development.

One thing to add here is that we actually support the add-on to some extent. During the past four weeks we were able to devote a time of our team member to take a look at some of the known issues related to this add-on which resulted in killing of several bugs on the way. As a result on October 8th we have released a new version of the addon to the marketplace. Even though it is not addressing the needs you have expressed, please consider this to be a proof of our serious plans to make this plugin great.

Given the confusion this is causing we are discussing the option of relabelling the add-on to be published under "Atlassian Labs" instead of "Atlassian" brand. Do you think it will remove the confusion related to supportability of this addon?

Cheers,
Bartek
JIRA Product Manager
bartek (at) atlassian (dot) com

[Lathrop [PSU]]

Bartek,

Thank you for the response. Let me see if I can return the favor.

1. If I can initiate a server-to-server move via a post function I can proactively and automatically triage tickets that are incorrectly placed based off a condition statement. Ideally, matched off a field value. This would be useful for two reasons.

• It would prevent someone being made responsible to manually triage tickets via a filter on a daily basis to move them between servers. This can be a bottleneck. (We have this sort of set up between our JIRA and a third party vendor's JIRA who does contract work for us.)

• It would allow automatic archiving based on field values.

I might be totally incorrect but I see this plugin being added to core to facilitate the needs of an archive plugin. The archive would be on another server and as such would require a server-to-server migration tool to work properly.

2. Thanks for the update about documentation and support. The situation is understandable but the plug-in page lacks that transparency. Please just tell us why there is no currently providing support on the plug-in page.

3. I do not think adding the plugin under Atlassian Labs will help with expectations. People consider Atlassian Labs an extension of Atlassian and not a third-party vendor. If it carries the company name and company employees do the development, it is difficult not to expect support based on the current terms of service. The official statement on plugin pages only states that, “… third-party plugins will not be supported by Atlassian.” It might be better to simply change the support statement so expectations can be managed. Something like, "Support for a plug-in is the decision & sole responsibility of the author." might be a better way to go. That would still allow Atlassian to not support plug-ins produced by other but also give them some flexibility in ending support for some things that produce low business value.

[Diana Diana]

Dear Roy,

Such a functionality is very needed and welcome in distributed teams.

Also to satify the following use-case: management of external customers - that have to add tasks to Jira and see on Jira only one access person from the team - for example product manager. On the other hand The product manager is distributing the tasks to team-members and the resolved tasks he is closing for being reported to customer.

I see it realized through copying the issues from one Jira to another - where one Jira is for the external customer (where he sees all tasks and progress on them), and another Jira is for the product manager and his management of the team. The team has to be a blackbox for the customer.

In this regard easy copying of issues from one Jira to another is very helpful, I am sure many would use the feature

Thank you,

Regards,

Diana

[rmk]

Thanks for your feedback Diana, it is most useful.

As I mentioned above we are hoping to futher improve this plugin and have it supported and bunlded in JIRA. We have not scheduled this in the next release (6.1) but it is on our short term roadmap after that.

Cheers,
Roy

[rmk]

Hi there,

Although the plugin as it stands is not supported, I believe that you will also need to configure a project/entity link between the two projects.

https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/JIRA/Configuring+Project+Links+across+Applications

Also, we are thinking of improving this plugin and bundling it in a future JIRA release. I'd love to chat with you about how/why you want to use it. Please feel free to email me below.

Cheers,

Roy Krishna
JIRA Product Management
roy at atlassian dot com