Migrate from team to company-based and preserve Keys
Asked by Anton:

Hi,  

I changed the keys of my team-managed projects; I observed that the issue keys also changed.  

I'm trying to create a new company-managed project with the original project key so that I can migrate the issues of the old team-managed project. However, I can not use the original project key which I need to use for consistency.  

I thought maybe there are some processes running in the background after the renaming, but two days later nothing has changed. By renaming the key, I am assuming that the key should become available again which is a logical consequence.  

When trying to create a new company-managed project with the original key, I'm getting the error message that a team-managed project already has the given key; however, when opening the project settings, it doesn't.

Therefore, there is a huge inconsistency between what is communicated on the UI and what happens in the background, therefore it is non-intuitive what actions I should take to achieve the outcome I want.   

Any workarounds? Thanks!


Answers:
author: Max Walther
body: Hi [@Anton](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/5546283) ,

[@Marc - Devoteam](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/3796976)is right. You can't do it that way.

You could however use an .csv export of the old project, delete it and try to import the issues in the new company managed project.

I'm certain you wont get the same issue keys, but at least you'll have the same Project Key.

Why do you need the exact issue keys in your new project?

Cheers

Max

comments: author: Anton
body: That sounds indeed like a good workaround.

We are using issue keys as actual references to user stories in documents and conversations, internal and external.  

Therefore, if the keys will be different, it might create a lot of inconsistencies in other places and also chronologically it messes things up.   

Thanks for the hint!  

Anton


author: Marc - Devoteam
body: Hi [@Anton](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/5546283)

No.

There can't be 2 projects in the same instance with the same key.

Changing the key on a project will still retain the old key in the system as old links will still need to work.

Only if you completely delete a project the key will be released.

comments: author: Anton
body: Considering that the final release happens with the deletion, it means that

1. My team-managed project has Key1
2. I create a new company-managed project with Key2
3. I migrate issues from project with Key1 to project with Key2
4. I remove team-managed project with Key1
5. I rename company-based project from Key2 to Key1

What's left is one company-based project with Key1, while there are no references through Key1 to the team-based project, however, there might be Key2 somewhere it the system still referencing the company-based project, which means, that optimally I would add a buffer project:  

1. My team-managed project has Key1
2. I create a new company-managed project with Key2
3. I migrate issues from project with Key1 to project with Key2
4. I remove team-managed project with Key1
5. I create a new company-based project with Key 1
6. I migrate issues from project with Key 2 to project with Key1
7. I remove company-managed project with Key2

What I don't know is if issues preserve their code during migration


author: Marc - Devoteam
body: Hi [@Anton](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/5546283)

You can execute the 1st 5 steps.

You would only have a reference to key2, based on the migrated issues.

To be completely clean, you would indeed need to take the 7 step action.


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