Getting Started

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5 minutes to read

2023-05-17 09:40:31 -0500

If you want to perform a bulk edit or a migration then you need to start here. This tool has been tested on updating from 100 to 250,000 work items by its users.

Watch the Video Overview to get you started in 30 minutes. This tool is complicated and it’s not always easy to discover what you need to do.

Install

In order to run the migration you will need to install the tools first.

Install Chocolatey from https://chocolatey.org/install
Run choco install vsts-sync-migrator to install the tools source

The tools are now installed. To run them you will need to switch to c:\tools\MigrationTools\ and run migration.exe.

Upgrade

Run choco upgrade vsts-sync-migrator to upgrade the tools source

Server configuration and setup

Follow the setup instructions to make sure that you can run the tool against your environments and importantly add the required custom field ‘ReflectedWorkItemId’

Create a default configuration file

Open a command prompt or PowerShell window at C:\tools\MigrationTools\
Run ./migration.exe init to create a default configuration
Open configuration.json from the current directory

You can now customise the configuration depending on what you need to do. However a basic config that you can use to migrate from one team project to another with the same process template is:

{
  "ChangeSetMappingFile": null,
  "Source": {
    "$type": "TfsTeamProjectConfig",
    "Collection": "https://dev.azure.com/nkdagility-preview/",
    "Project": "myProjectName",
    "ReflectedWorkItemIDFieldName": "Custom.ReflectedWorkItemId",
    "AllowCrossProjectLinking": false,
    "AuthenticationMode": "Prompt",
    "PersonalAccessToken": "",
    "PersonalAccessTokenVariableName": "",
    "LanguageMaps": {
      "AreaPath": "Area",
      "IterationPath": "Iteration"
    }
  },
  "Target": {
    "$type": "TfsTeamProjectConfig",
    "Collection": "https://dev.azure.com/nkdagility-preview/",
    "Project": "myProjectName",
    "ReflectedWorkItemIDFieldName": "Custom.ReflectedWorkItemId",
    "AllowCrossProjectLinking": false,
    "AuthenticationMode": "Prompt",
    "PersonalAccessToken": "",
    "PersonalAccessTokenVariableName": "",
    "LanguageMaps": {
      "AreaPath": "Area",
      "IterationPath": "Iteration"
    }
  },
  "FieldMaps": [
    {
      "$type": "MultiValueConditionalMapConfig",
      "WorkItemTypeName": "*",
      "sourceFieldsAndValues": {
        "Field1": "Value1",
        "Field2": "Value2"
      },
      "targetFieldsAndValues": {
        "Field1": "Value1",
        "Field2": "Value2"
      }
    },
    {
      "$type": "FieldBlankMapConfig",
      "WorkItemTypeName": "*",
      "targetField": "TfsMigrationTool.ReflectedWorkItemId"
    },
    {
      "$type": "FieldValueMapConfig",
      "WorkItemTypeName": "*",
      "sourceField": "System.State",
      "targetField": "System.State",
      "defaultValue": "New",
      "valueMapping": {
        "Approved": "New",
        "New": "New",
        "Committed": "Active",
        "In Progress": "Active",
        "To Do": "New",
        "Done": "Closed",
        "Removed": "Removed"
      }
    },
    {
      "$type": "FieldtoFieldMapConfig",
      "WorkItemTypeName": "*",
      "sourceField": "Microsoft.VSTS.Common.BacklogPriority",
      "targetField": "Microsoft.VSTS.Common.StackRank",
      "defaultValue": null
    },
    {
      "$type": "FieldtoFieldMultiMapConfig",
      "WorkItemTypeName": "*",
      "SourceToTargetMappings": {
        "SourceField1": "TargetField1",
        "SourceField2": "TargetField2"
      }
    },
    {
      "$type": "FieldtoTagMapConfig",
      "WorkItemTypeName": "*",
      "sourceField": "System.State",
      "formatExpression": "ScrumState:{0}"
    },
    {
      "$type": "FieldMergeMapConfig",
      "WorkItemTypeName": "*",
      "sourceFields": [
        "System.Description",
        "Microsoft.VSTS.Common.AcceptanceCriteria"
      ],
      "targetField": "System.Description",
      "formatExpression": "{0} <br/><br/><h3>Acceptance Criteria</h3>{1}",
      "doneMatch": "##DONE##"
    },
    {
      "$type": "RegexFieldMapConfig",
      "WorkItemTypeName": "*",
      "sourceField": "COMPANY.PRODUCT.Release",
      "targetField": "COMPANY.DEVISION.MinorReleaseVersion",
      "pattern": "PRODUCT \\d{4}.(\\d{1})",
      "replacement": "$1"
    },
    {
      "$type": "FieldValuetoTagMapConfig",
      "WorkItemTypeName": "*",
      "sourceField": "Microsoft.VSTS.CMMI.Blocked",
      "pattern": "Yes",
      "formatExpression": "{0}"
    },
    {
      "$type": "TreeToTagMapConfig",
      "WorkItemTypeName": "*",
      "toSkip": 3,
      "timeTravel": 1
    }
  ],
  "GitRepoMapping": null,
  "LogLevel": "Information",
  "CommonEnrichersConfig": null,
  "Processors": [
    {
      "$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": true,
      "WorkItemCreateRetryLimit": 5,
      "FilterWorkItemsThatAlreadyExistInTarget": true,
      "PauseAfterEachWorkItem": false,
      "AttachmentMaxSize": 480000000,
      "AttachRevisionHistory": false,
      "LinkMigrationSaveEachAsAdded": false,
      "GenerateMigrationComment": true,
      "WorkItemIDs": null,
      "MaxRevisions": 0,
      "NodeStructureEnricherEnabled": null,
      "UseCommonNodeStructureEnricherConfig": false,
      "StopMigrationOnMissingAreaIterationNodes": true,
      "NodeBasePaths": [
        "Product\\Area\\Path1",
        "Product\\Area\\Path2"
      ],
      "AreaMaps": {},
      "IterationMaps": {},
      "MaxGracefulFailures": 0,
      "SkipRevisionWithInvalidIterationPath": false
    }
  ],
  "Version": "0.0",
  "workaroundForQuerySOAPBugEnabled": false,
  "WorkItemTypeDefinition": {
    "sourceWorkItemTypeName": "targetWorkItemTypeName"
  },
  "Endpoints": {
    "InMemoryWorkItemEndpoints": [
      {
        "Name": "Source",
        "EndpointEnrichers": null
      },
      {
        "Name": "Target",
        "EndpointEnrichers": null
      }
    ]
  }
}

The default WorkItemMigrationConfig processor will perform the following operations:

Migrate interations and sprints
Attachments
Links including for source code. Optionally clone the repositories before starting the migration to have links maintained on the initial pass.

How to execute configuration.json with minimal adjustments

Remember to add custom field ‘ReflectedWorkItemId’ to only the target team project before starting migration!

[NOTE!] In older version of the tool we updated the Source work items with a link back to the Target to make migration easier. This has been removed and replaced with the FilterWorkItemsThatAlreadyExistInTarget option insead. You do not need to add the reflected work item ID custom field to the Source environment.

Adjust the value of the Collection attribute for Source and Target
Adjust the value of the Project attribute for Source and Target
Set the AuthenticationMode (Prompt or AccessToken) for Source and Target

If you set Authentication mode to AccessToken, enter a valid PAT as value for the PersonalAccessToken attribute, or set the PersonalAccessTokenVariableName to the name of an environment variable containing your PAT.
Adjust the value of the ReflectedWorkItemIDFieldName attribute (field name of the migration tracking field) for Source and Target

For example: TfsMigrationTool.ReflectedWorkItemId for TFS, ReflectedWorkItemId for VSTS or Custom.ReflectedWorkItemId for Azure DevOps
Enable the WorkItemMigrationConfig processor by setting Enabled to true
[OPTIONAL] Modify the WIQLQueryBit to migrate only the work items you want. The default WIQL will migrate all open work items and revisions excluding test suites and plans
Adjust the NodeBasePaths or leave empty to migrate all nodes
From the C:\tools\MigrationTools\ path run .\migration.exe execute --config .\configuration.json

Remember: if you want a processor to run, it’s Enabled attribute must be set to true.

Refer to the Reference Guide for more details.

Azure DevOps Migration Tools

Overview

Getting Started

Install

Upgrade

Server configuration and setup

Create a default configuration file

How to execute configuration.json with minimal adjustments

Project Details

Contribute

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