Migration of Free Trello to Atlassian

[Mary Black]

I am very afraid of this migration.  I see posts about "billing" yet we have a free account.  I see posts about checklists not migrating.  Is there a step-by-step process posted somewhere that will walk me through the process of migrating?  Several of us all use the same board using our company email addresses.  Will we all still have access to this same board once we migrate?  What happens if I test the board by migrating first?  Will my team members who have not migrated still have access to the same board?  Most importantly, will all our cards migrate?

[Jeanne Howe · Accepted solution]

@Mary Black FYI

@Garrett You stated this in your response:

"The migration process has no strings attached—there are no extra costs involved and it will not affect your ability to work with your team members or the ability to access your current content."

This is not an accurate statement. If you are Atlassian Cloud, you will now be billed for all Trello users - even in the "Free" Trello instance. For us, that's an increase of more the 100 licenses. Thats a pretty big hit, both financially and to our license count.

Free Trello is no longer "free"

[Mary Black]

@Garrettis this true?  I need to know.  Will my current free Trello account now be a Trello account that has a charge?  I need to know this ASAP.

[Mary Black]

@Jeanne Howe   See the email I received:

Hello Mary,

Good day! Thank you for contacting Atlassian. My name is Annissa from the Billing and Licensing Team and I will be glad to help.

I have limited access into making phonecalls yet, but I will be more than glad to answer your queries via email.

Migration will be seamless and your Free version of Trello will remain free.

Being managed does not impact board membership, nor Trello team membership. If your account becomes managed, you’ll still be a team member or Trello admin of all your existing teams & boards. Trello teams will remain intact as they are today; your board membership won’t change unless you choose to transfer your board memberships to another account using our board transfer tool.

I hope this clarifies your query. If I can be of any further assistance or clarification, please let me know.

Kind regards,

Annissa
Customer Advocate

[John Smith · Accepted solution]

Any answers and updates to this query @Blair at Atlassian ?

[Garrett · Accepted solution]

Hey @Jeanne Howe 

It sounds like you're referring to Atlassian Access, which you're right, that does have its own costs. However that's a subscription at the organization level that a company can sign up for if they want to manage their users' Atlassian accounts(now including Trello). It would not result in an individual user having to pay to continue using their own account.

For example, say @Mary Black migrates her company Trello account to Atlassian. That does not have any implicit costs. If Mary's company then decided they want to manage their members' Trello accounts, they can sign up for Atlassian Access, which gives them that ability.

Any costs from that subscription would be paid by the company, it would not suddenly require each Trello user in that company(such as Mary) to start paying themselves. That also doesn't change Mary's free version of Trello.

Does that help clarify?

[Mary Black]

@Garrettthat clarifies it for me, I think!  So, there are 6 folks total in my organization that use Trello.  We all have access to the same Trello board.  Will each of us still be able to do that with this migration????  At no cost????

[Garrett]

Yes, that's correct Mary.

You and all of your team members that migrate will not suddenly have a required cost or charge for Trello, and this won't have any effect on your access to your Trello boards, or your ability to work with your team members in those boards.

[Jeanne Howe]

@Garrett So when the Trello accounts are migrated to Atlassian accounts, they will not "take" an Atlassian license from our User Tier? They will not, automatically, be added to Access and take an Access license? You make it sound as if Access was an option. If you are on Cloud and have any kind of security, Access is required to integrate Cloud with a SSO.

Since we are using Access, and these accounts are going to be added, will my users now have to log into Trello via Okta (our SSO)? Is Trello compatible with Okta? How do we set up Trello for Okta?

Adding these accounts may result in surpassing our User Tier, forcing us to upgrade. Yet another cost.

[Jeanne Howe]

@Garrett I realize there is no "personal" cost to individual users, but there is a cost at the company level. For us that means added users to our license counts, which have to be paid for, as well as having to upgrade our User Tier, which has to be paid for.

In short, as I stated before, Trello is no longer free.

[Jimmy Seddon]

Hi @Jeanne Howe,

We have Atlassian Access ourselves and I can help answer a couple of those questions.  As far as additional costs for Atlassian Access, you will only consume additional Access licenses for users that you aren't already managing in Atlassian Access.  Here's an example, for our company every employee has access to Jira, and there for has a account that is being managed by Atlassian Access.  Up until now, they had SSO for Jira but not for Trello, and I was not aware of which of my users were using Trello.  Once this migration happens Trello is considered a part of that Atlassian account.  For all users that are already being managed for SSO access to Jira there is no additional Access costs.  You just now have the option for then to use SSO to authenticate for Trello as well as Jira.

If you have users that were only using Trello and weren't being managed in Atlassian Access previously, those will be new users in Access, and yes unfortunately they will incur additional Access costs.

To answer the questions about Trello working with Okta, once your Trello accounts are migrated to Atlassian Accounts, it uses Atlassian's authentication service that sits on top of all of their Cloud products to handle authentication, so as long as you have Okta configured and working for other Atlassian Cloud products it should just start working for Trello post migration as well.

I hope that helps clarify things a little.

-Jimmy

[Jeanne Howe]

@Jimmy Seddon 

That's exactly my point. We have > 150 users in Trello that do not have an Atlassian account. Migrating them to an Atlassian count will not only take an Access license, it will push us over our User Tier and require us to upgrade. The fact that I now have to pay for (license) these users means Trello is no longer free.

[Blair at Atlassian]

Hi Jeanne,

If your employees are using their work email address on their Trello account for non-work related activities, we suggest you reach out to the Trello-only users and ask them to remove their work email address from their Trello account. You won't be billed for these new Trello-only users if they remove the company email on their Trello. Below we provide more information on how to reach out to these users.

Second, you will not be billed for any Trello-only users that you deactivate. We added a new .csv export to your administrator portal to help you manage your bill while causing minimal disruption to your users. That .csv includes information about your Trello users' Trello usage to help you decide which users to deactivate.

• “Email” tells you the email on the user’s Trello account that was claimed so that you can reach out to your users and discuss their Trello usage.

• “Added to you Access bill in April” tells you if the user will become a billable user if you don’t take on their Atlassian account before June.

• “Using Atlassian account for Trello” tells you if the user has finished connecting their Atlassian account to their Trello account. Once a user has completed this process, and “Using Atlassian account for Trello” is marked “Yes” then actions you take on their Atlassian account will impact their Trello account.

• “Last Active Date” tells you when the user was last active in Trello. It may be less disruptive to your users if you choose to deactivate users who have not been active in Trello for a long time.

• “Trello Free”, “Trello Business Class”, and “Trello Enterprise” tells you to what Trello product your Trello users have access. Trello Business Class users and Trello Enterprise users are being paid for by a Trello admin, so you should discuss their Trello usage with them before deactivating them. Additionally, you won’t be billed for Access for any Trello Enterprise users, so you do not need to deactivate them to lower your bill.

[Jeanne Howe]

@Blair at Atlassian 

I am aware of all of that info. This is how I know I have >150 users who I will now have to license and budget. It is also how I know we will exceed our User Tier, and be required to upgrade.

Trello may still be free to download, but if you are Atlassian Cloud with Atlassian Access for SSO integration, Trello is not free.

[Jessica Venditti]

@Blair at Atlassian 

Jeanne,

Thank you for this discussion as I am in the same situation a you are. We had a smaller number of staff on the atlassian account ( jira and confluence). When we got the notification that the trello users would be migrated over we tried to find the benefits but allowed it to happen. 

I can understand if they are using for personal use, we can ask them to remove the work email and they will 'drop off' the account (we might have to deactivate) but many of our staff I would say are trello-only but using the account for work. 

My understanding is that we are going to have to pay for these new trello-only users at the company level. I have read documentation and this seems to be the case. Is there a separate pricing structure for those just using trello and none of the other products as our bill is going to jump pretty high and we may need to look at other solutions as it seems this was unexpected or perhaps if we were notified, it was unclear.

Thank you

[Pieter Steyn]

We have just finished preparing to enable Atlassian Access across the whole of our government department. We did the export of users before claiming users (460), and worked out our level of subscription based on the active users (<300).

After claiming the users, however, an extra 500 Free Trello users then showed showed up as managed accounts. Only the subset of Trello users with 'Using Atlassian Account for Trello' set to Yes showed up in the user list we based our subscription budget on. All of these Free Trello users are, however, added to the Access bill.

This is extremely frustrating and disappointing. The wrong information was given to us, and this is now a deal breaker. It has taken a lot of time to do the preparation, and also getting the funding approved.

We have not budgeted for these users as we had no foreknowledge of them, and will therefore have to cancel Atlassian Access if we have to pay for Free Trello users as managed users.

[Garrett · Accepted solution]

Mi Mary,

Sorry for the concern that migration messaging caused. I'd be happy to clear the air on that, but you can also see a collection of common questions regarding this migration here: https://help.trello.com/article/1197-using-trello-with-an-atlassian-account

The migration process has no strings attached—there are no extra costs involved and it will not affect your ability to work with your team members or the ability to access your current content.

This migration only applies to the account level, so for example, your Trello profile details would be changed in Atlassian rather than Trello. You can see all the details about Atlassian accounts here: https://confluence.atlassian.com/cloud/your-atlassian-account-976161169.html

You could think of this new Atlassian account you're getting in a similar way to a Google account. Like how a single Google account lets you access Gmail, Drive, etc. an Atlasssian account is a central location where you can access all of the products in its suite, such as Trello, Confluence, etc.

I'm afraid that I don't have an exact walkthrough I can share, but my recommendation would be to read through each step and when you're asked to create your new Atlassian account, enter a password there and don't use the login with Google option. 

If you have any trouble though, drop us an email at https://trello.com/contact and we can definitely take a closer look and help out!

[Mary Black]

Thanks Garrett!  So just to be clear, the look and feel of our Trello board will not change?  Nor the ability to access it and use as we do now currently after migration?

[Mary Black]

Also, do we have to use a particular Power Up to connect?  That's where I have confusion.  For example do we have use the Jira connect to Trello?  I have no idea what that means....

[Garrett]

Nope, no changes to Trello as far as your boards or access to them go. This is only at the account level. The Jira Power-Up is used if you wanted to connect Jira to Trello, but it isn't required in the context of this migration.

[Jeanne Howe]

Well, this just keeps getting better and better.

Atlassian official recommendation to keep your "free" Trello users off your Atlassian Access bill is to have them use a "non-work" email address:

Blog snippet:

Atlassian Access customers with Trello users

If a user only uses Trello and doesn’t use any of your other Atlassian products, we will count them towards your Atlassian Access bill. 

If you don’t want to pay for these additional users, you can change their email addresses to a non-company owned email address or deactivate their accounts. Either action will remove them from your Atlassian Access bill. Read more about how Trello impacts your Access bill. You can learn more about changing users' emails addresses or deactivating users in the Preventing your Trello users from using Trello with a company account section of this doc.

Full blog post can be found here - https://confluence.atlassian.com/cloud/blog/2020/02/managing-trello-accounts-from-your-organization

Yes, this is what I want - unsecured personal email addresses being used to access a tool that has secure company data. Let's just open that door real wide for every hacker looking for a way in.

Here is our new monthly task, thank you Atlassian:

Because of this:

Since we have no control over the accounts. As a customer of Atlassian Cloud using Atlassian Access, we will be billed for every user that creates a Trello account (provided they do not have Jira or Confluence access). This includes users that download Trello and log in, just to see what it is. Even if they delete the app after logging in for the first time, you are still billed for the account until it is deactivated.

We now do this:

Log into our managed accounts, walk through every user account,  delete/disable accounts for Trello, and then, repeat every month.

Thanks Atlassian, you've out done yourself.

[Alex Janes]

Atlassian, this is a problem. It would be one thing if they were on the paid tier of Trello before. Now, suddenly, IT departments are being pushed into not only managing, but paying for accounts in their Atlassian Access that they never intended to manage, and never asked Atlassian to manage through the 'Access' product in the first place.

These were free Trello users, and you pushed them into effectively being paid accounts. The only way to keep them free, is to change away from their work email. That is dumb.

I'm sorry, but that is not what all these IT departments signed up for...

It would be one thing if you added all these accounts to their 'Access' product, but then didn't charge them for it, since they were grandfathered in to a previous plan where they didn't have to be managed in 'Access'. New users, or a conversion from free trello user to paid trello user, would be billed normally for 'Access'.

Once again, I am seeing Atlassian pull the rug out from the customers that don't spend enough money; and forcing them to increase costs, or find a new product.

From a technical perspective, I understand why Atlassian is moving everyone to Atlassian accounts. It just makes sense.

But, from a customer service stand point, this is truly a failure...

[Alex Janes]

I know it is confusing as to how this is a problem. But let me give you a clear cut example...

Contoso is an organization with 1000 employees. They has a Jira Cloud Instance with 50 users. They manage these Atlassian accounts through Atlassian Access.

Some lower level employees working on smaller projects, utilize a Trello board to manage their projects. Because these projects are for Contoso, these employees utilize their @contoso.com email addresses to login. Contoso does not pay for Trello, but understands that employees are using the app.

Let's say the number of free Trello users is 100.

Now, after Atlassian account migration, Contoso wakes up to find 100 new users in their Atlassian Access account that they never intended to manage. They don't want to pay for these users, so they contact Atlassian support to get their options.

They are told they can either pay for the additional 100 Access users, or they can have their employees with free Trello accounts to change their email on the account to a personal email. Because these are work projects, it is inappropriate for the employee to change to their personal email. Plus, the employee doesn't want to use their personal email for work stuff.

Now, Contoso, who has told their employees that they are allowed to sign up to a free Trello account, is left with 2 options realistically...

1. Inform all employees that they can no longer use Trello

2. Pay for Atlassian Access for accounts that are using a 'free' product

Honestly, Atlassian, this is truly another amazing example of Atlassian making massive changes while either...

A. Not considering how this will affect all of their customers.

or...

B. Knowing this exact scenario is possible, and, don't care, you want more $$$.

Worse yet, you are holding business data hostage behind a new fee for users. Either the IT department pays your fee, or the company loses access to Trello free. I know they don't TECHNICALLY lose access. But changing to a personal email is NOT an option. Come on guys...

[Jeanne Howe]

So here is a nice little tidbit.

Trello accounts are migrated into Atlassian accounts. For those of us on Cloud, this means they are added, and now billed, for Atlassian Access.

Now comes the good part - There is no way to manage Trello users in Atlassian Access. So, now we have the issue that anyone can download the "free" Trello application, but as soon as they log in with their "work" email - they are add to our Atlassian Access license total. This includes users who download Trello to see what it is, but never actually use it. They may delete the download, but the Atlassian account is still created/active, it is still added to Atlassian Access, and I am still billed for it.

Isn't that just dandy. I now have no control over user management/licensing when it comes to these Trello users. 

Things just keep getting better and better.

[John Lee]

Right?!?! We are running into these exact issues as well and just submitted a Support ticket to the Atlassian billing team to try and address these new issues that pop-up after the migration. These are some of the other issues we are seeing when trying to manage Trello users through Atlassian Access:

• There seems to be no way to block/prevent our users from signing up for a free Trello account using their company email address (even through we have claimed/verified the domain), which means we will automatically be billed for their Atlassian Access charge if a user were to sign up for a Trello account on their own.
• There is no way to delete/deactivate just the Trello product from a managed user's account through Atlassian Access admin portal. 
  • This thread suggests the only way to get more granular Org Admin control over the user's Trello account is to upgrade to a paid Trello subscription or deactivate their Atlassian Access account altogether. This won't work for our users as many have Confluence / JIRA product access through their Atlassian Access account and need to continue to use these products: https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Trello-questions/How-managed-all-my-Trello-managed-accounts-after-Atlassian/qaq-p/1384288 

[lkamwathi]

I just signed up for a FREE Trello account using my work email and now my work is getting billing errors because of it. Is there a way I can delete the Trello account. I am just a dev and all I wanted to try it out and it said its FREE. :-( 

[Kinjal Patel]

We need a way to manage Trello users now that the migration is already complete. With over 200 users, it's hard to do manual cleanup and even after spending time to do cleanup, there is no way to prevent this from happening again. Is there a way to keep Trello users out of the Atlassian Access so there is no impact to the license count?