Azure DevOps Migration Tools

v14.3.4

Azure DevOps Migration Tools

Overview
 › 
 › 
 › 
 › 
 › 

WorkItemMigrationContext

Ref

  

Less than 1 minute to read

  

2023-11-29 05:34:35 -0600

WorkItemMigrationConfig is the main processor used to Migrate Work Items, Links, and Attachments. Use WorkItemMigrationConfig to configure.

The WorkItemMigrationContext processor is used for migrating work items from one Azure DevOps instance to another. This encompasses a variety of activities:

  1. Transferring Work Items Between Instances: The primary purpose of the processor is to transfer work items, including bugs, tasks, user stories, features, and more, from one Azure DevOps instance to another.

  2. Migrating Work Item History: The processor can also replicate the entire revision history of work items, providing continuity and maintaining a record of changes.

  3. Migrating Attachments and Links: The processor can transfer any attachments or links associated with work items. This includes both external links and internal links to other work items.

  4. Updating Metadata: If configured, the processor can update the “Created Date” and “Created By” fields on migrated work items to match the original items in the source instance.

  5. Filtering Work Items: The processor can be configured to only migrate certain work items based on their area or iteration paths.

Overall, the WorkItemMigrationContext processor is a comprehensive tool for transferring work items and their associated data and metadata between Azure DevOps instances. It should be used whenever there is a need to move work items between instances while preserving as much information as possible.

Options

Parameter name Type Description Default Value
AreaMaps Dictionary Remapping rules for area paths, implemented with regular expressions. The rules apply with a higher priority than the `PrefixProjectToNodes`, that is, if no rule matches the path and the `PrefixProjectToNodes` option is enabled, then the old `PrefixProjectToNodes` behavior is applied. {}
AttachmentMaxSize Int32 `AttachmentMigration` is set to true then you need to specify a max file size for upload in bites. For Azure DevOps Services the default is 480,000,000 bites (60mb), for TFS its 32,000,000 bites (4mb). 480000000
AttachmentMigration Boolean If enabled this will migrate all of the attachments at the same time as the work item true
AttachmentWorkingPath String `AttachmentMigration` is set to true then you need to specify a working path for attachments to be saved locally. C:\temp\Migration\
AttachRevisionHistory Boolean This will create a json file with the revision history and attach it to the work item. Best used with `MaxRevisions` or `ReplayRevisions`. ?
Enabled Boolean If enabled then the processor will run false
FilterWorkItemsThatAlreadyExistInTarget Boolean This loads all of the work items already saved to the Target and removes them from the Source work item list prior to commencing the run. While this may take some time in large data sets it reduces the time of the overall migration significantly if you need to restart. true
FixHtmlAttachmentLinks Boolean **beta** If enabled this will fix any image attachments URL's, work item mention URL's or user mentions in the HTML fields as well as discussion comments. You must specify a PersonalAccessToken in the Source project for Azure DevOps; TFS should use integrated authentication. ?
GenerateMigrationComment Boolean If enabled, adds a comment recording the migration false
IterationMaps Dictionary Remapping rules for iteration paths, implemented with regular expressions. The rules apply with a higher priority than the `PrefixProjectToNodes`, that is, if no rule matches the path and the `PrefixProjectToNodes` option is enabled, then the old `PrefixProjectToNodes` behavior is applied. {}
LinkMigration Boolean If enabled this will migrate the Links for the work item at the same time as the whole work item. true
LinkMigrationSaveEachAsAdded Boolean If you have changed parents before re-running a sync you may get a `TF26194: unable to change the value of the 'Parent' field` error. This will resolve it, but will slow migration. false
MaxGracefulFailures Int32 The maximum number of failures to tolerate before the migration fails. When set above zero, a work item migration error is logged but the migration will continue until the number of failed items reaches the configured value, after which the migration fails. 0
MaxRevisions Int32 Sets the maximum number of revisions that will be migrated. "First + Last N = Max". If this was set to 5 and there were 10 revisions you would get the first 1 (creation) and the latest 4 migrated. 0
NodeBasePaths String[] The root paths of the Ares / Iterations you want migrate. See [NodeBasePath Configuration](#nodebasepath-configuration) ["/"]
PauseAfterEachWorkItem Boolean Pause after each work item is migrated false
PrefixProjectToNodes Boolean Prefix your iterations and areas with the project name. If you have enabled this in `NodeStructuresMigrationConfig` you must do it here too. false
ReplayRevisions Boolean You can choose to migrate the tip only (a single write) or all of the revisions (many writes). If you are setting this to `false` to migrate only the tip then you should set `BuildFieldTable` to `true`. true
ShouldCreateMissingRevisionPaths Boolean When set to True the susyem will try to create any missing missing area or iteration paths from the revisions. missng XML code comments
ShouldCreateNodesUpFront Boolean missng XML code comments missng XML code comments
SkipRevisionWithInvalidAreaPath Boolean When set to true, this setting will skip a revision if the source area has not been migrated, has been deleted or is somehow invalid, etc. missng XML code comments
SkipRevisionWithInvalidIterationPath Boolean This will skip a revision if the source iteration has not been migrated i.e. it was deleted missng XML code comments
SkipToFinalRevisedWorkItemType Boolean **beta** If enabled this will fix any image attachments URL's, work item mention URL's or user mentions in the HTML fields as well as discussion comments. You must specify a PersonalAccessToken in the Source project for Azure DevOps; TFS should use integrated authentication. false
UpdateCreatedBy Boolean If this is enabled the creation process on the target project will create the items with the original creation date. (Important: The item history is always pointed to the date of the migration, it's change only the data column CreateDate, not the internal create date) true
UpdateCreatedDate Boolean If this is enabled the creation process on the target project will create the items with the original creation date. (Important: The item history is always pointed to the date of the migration, it's change only the data column CreateDate, not the internal create date) true
UseCommonNodeStructureEnricherConfig Boolean ?
WIQLOrderBit String A work item query to affect the order in which the work items are migrated. Don't leave this empty. [System.ChangedDate] desc
WIQLQueryBit String A work item query based on WIQL to select only important work items. To migrate all leave this empty. See [WIQL Query Bits](#wiql-query-bits) AND [Microsoft.VSTS.Common.ClosedDate] = '' AND [System.WorkItemType] NOT IN ('Test Suite', 'Test Plan','Shared Steps','Shared Parameter','Feedback Request')
WorkItemCreateRetryLimit Int32 **beta** If set to a number greater than 0 work items that fail to save will retry after a number of seconds equal to the retry count. This allows for periodic network glitches not to end the process. 5
WorkItemIDs IList A list of work items to import []

Example

A basic sample for WorkItemMigrationContext configuration.



1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37



{
  "$type": "WorkItemMigrationConfig",
  "Enabled": false,
  "ReplayRevisions": true,
  "PrefixProjectToNodes": false,
  "UpdateCreatedDate": true,
  "UpdateCreatedBy": true,
  "WIQLQueryBit": "AND  [Microsoft.VSTS.Common.ClosedDate] = '' AND [System.WorkItemType] NOT IN ('Test Suite', 'Test Plan','Shared Steps','Shared Parameter','Feedback Request')",
  "WIQLOrderBit": "[System.ChangedDate] desc",
  "LinkMigration": true,
  "AttachmentMigration": true,
  "AttachmentWorkingPath": "c:\\temp\\WorkItemAttachmentWorkingFolder\\",
  "FixHtmlAttachmentLinks": false,
  "SkipToFinalRevisedWorkItemType": false,
  "WorkItemCreateRetryLimit": 5,
  "FilterWorkItemsThatAlreadyExistInTarget": true,
  "PauseAfterEachWorkItem": false,
  "AttachmentMaxSize": 480000000,
  "AttachRevisionHistory": false,
  "LinkMigrationSaveEachAsAdded": false,
  "GenerateMigrationComment": true,
  "WorkItemIDs": null,
  "MaxRevisions": 0,
  "UseCommonNodeStructureEnricherConfig": false,
  "NodeBasePaths": null,
  "AreaMaps": {
    "$type": "Dictionary`2"
  },
  "IterationMaps": {
    "$type": "Dictionary`2"
  },
  "MaxGracefulFailures": 0,
  "SkipRevisionWithInvalidIterationPath": false,
  "SkipRevisionWithInvalidAreaPath": false,
  "ShouldCreateMissingRevisionPaths": true,
  "ShouldCreateNodesUpFront": true
}

WIQL Query Bits

The Work Item queries are all built using Work Item Query Language (WIQL).

Note: A useful Azure DevOps Extension to explore WIQL is the WIQL Editor

Examples

You can use the WIQL Editor to craft a query in Azure DevOps.

Typical way that queries are built:

 var targetQuery =
     string.Format(
         @"SELECT [System.Id], [{ReflectedWorkItemIDFieldName}] FROM WorkItems WHERE [System.TeamProject] = @TeamProject {WIQLQueryBit} ORDER BY {WIQLOrderBit}",
         Engine.Target.Config.ReflectedWorkItemIDFieldName,
         _config.WIQLQueryBit,
         _config.WIQLOrderBit
      );
var targetFoundItems = Engine.Target.WorkItems.GetWorkItems(targetQuery);

A simple example config:

"WIQLQueryBit": "AND [System.WorkItemType] NOT IN ('Test Suite', 'Test Plan')",
"WIQLOrderBit": "[System.ChangedDate] desc",

Scope to Area Path (Team data):

"WIQLQueryBit": "AND [System.AreaPath] UNDER 'project\Team 1\' AND [System.WorkItemType] NOT IN ('Test Suite', 'Test Plan')",
"WIQLOrderBit": "[System.ChangedDate] desc",

"WIQLQueryBit": "AND [System.ChangedDate] > 'project\Team 1\' AND [System.WorkItemType] NOT IN ('Test Suite', 'Test Plan')",
"WIQLOrderBit": "[System.ChangedDate] desc",

NodeBasePath Configuration

The NodeBasePaths entry allows the filtering of the nodes to be replicated on the target projects. To try to explain the correct usage let us assume that we have a source team project SourceProj with the following node structures

  • AreaPath
    • SourceProj
    • SourceProj\Team 1
    • SourceProj\Team 2
    • SourceProj\Team 2\Sub-Area
    • SourceProj\Team 3
  • IterationPath
    • SourceProj
    • SourceProj\Sprint 1
    • SourceProj\Sprint 2
    • SourceProj\Sprint 2\Sub-Iteration
    • SourceProj\Sprint 3

Depending upon what node structures you wish to migrate you would need the following settings. Exclusions are also possible by prefixing a path with an exclamation mark !. Example are

   
Intention Migrate all areas and iterations and all Work Items
NodeBasePath []
Comment The same AreaPath and Iteration Paths are created on the target as on the source. Hence, all migrated WI remain in their existing area and iteration paths
   
Intention Only migrate area path Team 2 and it associated Work Items, but all iteration paths
NodeBasePath ["Team 2", "Sprint"]
Comment Only the area path ending Team 2 will be migrated.
The WIQLQueryBit should be edited to limit the WI migrated to this area path e.g. add AND [System.AreaPath] UNDER 'SampleProject\\Team 2' .
The migrated WI will have an area path of TargetProj\Team 2 but retain their iteration paths matching the sprint name on the source
   
Intention Only migrate iterations structure
NodeBasePath ["Sprint"]
Comment Only the area path ending Team 2 will be migrated
All the iteration paths will be migrated.
The migrated WI will have the default area path of TargetProj as their source area path was not migrated i.e. TargetProj
The migrated WI will have an iteration path match the sprint name on the source
   
Intention Move all WI to the existing area and iteration paths on the targetProj
NodeBasePath ["DUMMY VALUE"]
Comment As the NodeBasePath does not match any source area or iteration path no nodes are migrated.
Migrated WI will be assigned to any matching area or iteration paths. If no matching ones can be found they will default to the respective root values
   
Intention Move the Team 2 area, but not its Sub-Area
NodeBasePath ["Team 2", "!Team 2\\SubArea"]
Comment The Work Items will have to be restricted to the right areas, e.g. with AND [System.AreaPath] UNDER 'SampleProject\\Team 2' AND [System.AreaPath] NOT UNDER 'SampleProject\\Team 2\\Sub-Area', otherwise their migratin will fail

Iteration Maps and Area Maps

These two configuration elements apply after the NodeBasePaths selector, i.e. only on Areas and Iterations that have been selected for migration. They allow to change the area path, respectively the iteration path, of migrated work items.

These remapping rules are applied both while creating path nodes in the target project and when migrating work items.

These remapping rules are applied with a higher priority than the PrefixProjectToNodes option. This means that if no declared rule matches the path and the PrefixProjectToNodes option is enabled, then the old behavior is used.

The syntax is a dictionary of regular expressions and the replacement text.

Warning: These follow the .net regular expression language. The key in the dictionary is a regular expression search pattern, while the value is a regular expression replacement pattern. It is therefore possible to use back-references in the replacement string.

Warning: Special characters in the acceptation of regular expressions and json both need to be escaped. For a key, this means, for example, that a literal backslash must be escaped for the regular expression language \\ and each of these backslashes must then be escaped for the json encoding: \\\\. In the replacement string, a literal $ must be escaped with an additional $ if it is followed by a number (due to the special meaning in regular expression replacement strings), while a backslash must be escaped (\\) due to the special meaning in json.

Advice: To avoid unexpected results, always match terminating backslashes in the search pattern and replacement string: if a search pattern ends with a backslash, you should also put one in the replacement string, and if the search pattern does not include a terminating backslash, then none should be included in the replacement string.

Examples explained

"IterationMaps": {
  "^OriginalProject\\\\Path1(?=\\\\Sprint 2022)": "TargetProject\\AnotherPath\\NewTeam",
  "^OriginalProject\\\\Path1(?=\\\\Sprint 2020)": "TargetProject\\AnotherPath\\Archives\\Sprints 2020",
  "^OriginalProject\\\\Path2": "TargetProject\\YetAnotherPath\\Path2",
},
"AreaMaps": {
  "^OriginalProject\\\\(DescopeThis|DescopeThat)": "TargetProject\\Archive\\Descoped\\",
  "^OriginalProject\\\\(?!DescopeThis|DescopeThat)": "TargetProject\\NewArea\\",
}

  • "^OriginalProject\\\\Path1(?=\\\\Sprint 2022)": "TargetProject\\AnotherPath\\NewTeam",

    In an iteration path, OriginalProject\Path1 found at the beginning of the path, when followed by \Sprint 2022, will be replaced by TargetProject\AnotherPath\NewTeam.

    OriginalProject\Path1\Sprint 2022\Sprint 01 will become TargetProject\AnotherPath\NewTeam\Sprint 2022\Sprint 01 but OriginalProject\Path1\Sprint 2020\Sprint 03 will not be transformed by this rule.

  • "^OriginalProject\\\\Path1(?=\\\\Sprint 2020)": "TargetProject\\AnotherPath\\Archives\\Sprints 2020",

    In an iteration path, OriginalProject\Path1 found at the beginning of the path, when followed by \Sprint 2020, will be replaced by TargetProject\AnotherPath\Archives\\Sprints 2020.

    OriginalProject\Path1\Sprint 2020\Sprint 01 will become TargetProject\AnotherPath\Archives\Sprint 2020\Sprint 01 but OriginalProject\Path1\Sprint 2021\Sprint 03 will not be transformed by this rule.

  • "^OriginalProject\\\\Path2": "TargetProject\\YetAnotherPath\\Path2",

    In an iteration path, OriginalProject\Path2 will be replaced by TargetProject\YetAnotherPath\Path2.

  • "^OriginalProject\\\\(DescopeThis|DescopeThat)": "TargetProject\\Archive\\Descoped\\",

    In an area path, OriginalProject\ found at the beginning of the path, when followed by either DescopeThis or DescopeThat will be replaced by TargetProject\Archive\Descoped\.

    OriginalProject\DescopeThis\Area will be transformed to TargetProject\Archive\Descoped\DescopeThis\Area. OriginalProject\DescopeThat\Product will be transformed to TargetProject\Archive\Descoped\DescopeThat\Product.

  • "^OriginalProject\\\\(?!DescopeThis|DescopeThat)": "TargetProject\\NewArea\\",

    In an area path, OriginalProject\ found at the beginning of the path will be replaced by TargetProject\NewArea\ unless it is followed by DescopeThis or DescopeThat.

    OriginalProject\ValidArea\ would be replaced by TargetProject\NewArea\ValidArea\ but OriginalProject\DescopeThis would not be modified by this rule.

More Complex Regex

Before your migration starts it will validate that all of the Areas and Iterations from the Source work items revisions exist on the Target. Any that do not exist will be flagged in the logs and if and the migration will stop just after it outputs a list of the missing nodes.

Our algorithm that converts the Source nodes to Target nodes processes the mappings at that time. This means that any valid mapped nodes will never be caught by the This path is not anchored in the source project message as they are already altered to be valid.

We recently updated the logging for this part of the system to more easily debug both your mappings and to see what they system is doing with the nodes and their current state. You can set "LogLevel": "Debug" to see the details.

To add a mapping, you can follow the documentation with this being the simplest way:

"IterationMaps": {
  "WorkItemMovedFromProjectName\\\\Iteration 1": "TargetProject\\Sprint 1",
},
"AreaMaps": {
   "WorkItemMovedFromProjectName\\\\Team 2": "TargetProject\\ProductA\\Team 2",
}

Or you can use regular expressions to match the missing area or iteration paths:

"IterationMaps": {
  "^OriginalProject\\\\Path1(?=\\\\Sprint 2022)": "TargetProject\\AnotherPath\\NewTeam",
  "^OriginalProject\\\\Path1(?=\\\\Sprint 2020)": "TargetProject\\AnotherPath\\Archives\\Sprints 2020",
  "^OriginalProject\\\\Path2": "TargetProject\\YetAnotherPath\\Path2",
},
"AreaMaps": {
  "^OriginalProject\\\\(DescopeThis|DescopeThat)": "TargetProject\\Archive\\Descoped\\",
  "^OriginalProject\\\\(?!DescopeThis|DescopeThat)": "TargetProject\\NewArea\\",
}

If you want to use the matches in the replacement you can use the following:

"IterationMaps": {
  "^\\\\oldproject1(?:\\\\([^\\\\]+))?\\\\([^\\\\]+)$": "TargetProject\\Q1\$2",
}

If the olf iteration path was \oldproject1\Custom Reporting\Sprint 13, then this would result in a match for each Iteration node after the project node. You would then be able to reference any of the nodes using “$” and then the number of the match.

Regular expressions are much more difficult to build and debug so it is a good idea to use a regular expression tester to check that you are matching the right things and to build them in ChatGTP.

NOTE: You need \\ to escape a \ the pattern, and \\ to escape a \ in JSON. Therefor on the left of the match you need 4 \ to represent the \\ for the pattern and only 2 \ in the match

image

More Complex Team Migrations

The above options allow you to bring over a sub-set of the WIs (using the WIQLQueryBit) and move their area or iteration path to a default location. However you may wish to do something more complex e.g. re-map the team structure. This can be done with addition of a FieldMaps block to configuration in addition to the NodeBasePaths.

Using the above sample structure, if you wanted to map the source project Team 1 to target project Team A etc. you could add the field map as follows

A complete list of FieldMaps are available.

 "FieldMaps": [
   {
      "$type": "FieldValueMapConfig",
      "WorkItemTypeName": "*",
      "sourceField": "System.AreaPath",
      "targetField": "System.AreaPath",
      "defaultValue": "TargetProg",
      "valueMapping": {
        "SampleProj\\Team 1": "TargetProg\\Team A",
        "SampleProj\\Team 2": "TargetProg\\Team B"
        "SampleProj\\Team 3": "TargetProg\\Team C"
      }
    },
  ],

Note: This mappings could also be achieved with other forms of Field mapper e.g. RegexFieldMapConfig, but the value mapper as an example is easy to understand

Project Details
Chocolatey GitHub release Build on VSTS

Contribute
In this article