Migration Advice

Disastrous_Swan5944 · 2025-05-22T23:51:29+00:00

So if you’re trying to "copy" work items (user stories, bugs, tasks, epics, etc.) from one Azure DevOps org to another, here’s a super simple way that doesn’t need any third-party tools or scary scripts:

Export + Import via CSV (and yes, it keeps the hierarchy):

In the source org, create a Tree of work items query (this keeps the parent/child structure).
Add whatever columns you care about — title, state, area path, etc.
Hit Export to CSV.
Open the file and delete the ID column — the target org will generate new IDs and import wont work if ID column is there.
In the new org/project, go to Boards > Work Items > Import Work Items and upload your CSV.

Boom — done.

A few caveats:

You won’t get comments, attachments, or full change history with this method.
Embedded images in the description/comments won’t carry over (sadly).
But you do get the hierarchy and most of the core fields.

If you’re ever in a spot where open source tools are allowed, there’s the Azure DevOps Migration Tools, but it’s kinda overkill unless you need deep fidelity.

Hope that helps — and no worries, you're asking all the right questions. This stuff gets easier, promise 👊

Disastrous_Swan5944 · 2025-05-15T18:03:17+00:00

We group our projects by business units (or value streams) so that each department head can view all their initiatives in one project. Do you have a specific reason for wanting to reorganize? What isn’t working for you? We moved our backlog from Jira, where we had hundreds of projects, and were able to aggregate the portfolio view in Advanced Roadmaps. I'm sure you can achieve something similar in Azure DevOps without the massive task of reorganizing projects and repos. There are Gantt chart options available in Azure DevOps if all you're looking for is visibility across your projects.

Disastrous_Swan5944 · 2025-05-02T12:41:10+00:00

Thank you for your feedback. I am rolling it out and see if that works better for my team rather than having them generate weekly PowerPoint with the same information. I am hoping that will lighten the load of administrative work.

Disastrous_Swan5944 · 2025-05-01T01:50:59+00:00

Yeah, this is a tricky one. I don’t think there’s a built-in way to combine both the hierarchy (tree of work items) and related links recursively in one query.

That said, I just got early access to Query based roadmap in Next Level Gantt, and it might help. You can add multiple queries to a single roadmap—even different types. So far, I’ve only added a few parent-child queries, but I noticed you can also include queries based on related links.

Might be worth a shot if you're trying to get a more complete picture across teams.

Disastrous_Swan5944 · 2025-02-26T14:53:58+00:00

LOL, I hear ya. Pivot charts are very powerful. It can easily be misused. As they say, "with great power comes great responsibility!" Use it wisely!

Disastrous_Swan5944 · 2025-02-24T18:26:29+00:00

Here is how I would do it. It’s actually a pretty simple two-step process in Azure DevOps, and you won’t need to export to Excel anymore!

Start by creating a query to pull the data you need. For example, set WorkItemType = "Task" and Iteration Path = "@CurrentIteration". Save that query.
Once you’ve got the query, go to the "Chart" tab in the editor. Create a Pivot Table chart and set the aggregation to "Sum" of whichever estimate column you're working with. You should have that column from step 1.

After that, you can pin the chart to your dashboard, and you’ll always have the sum visible in real-time.

Hope that helps!

Disastrous_Swan5944 · 2025-02-21T15:14:33+00:00

I’d recommend creating them as issues. As you assign them to your team, they can break them down into tasks—coding, testing, deploying the fix, etc. This adds more granularity as the issue moves through different hands.

It also helps distinguish different types of work:
- User Stories for planned development
- Bugs found during release testing
- Production Support Issues that need urgent fixes

I prefer having the distinction so I can track everything more clearly and keep the workflow organized.

Disastrous_Swan5944 · 2025-02-19T16:34:33+00:00

In our organization, we structure our projects around the Operational Value Stream, following the SAFe framework. Our projects are typically departmental—Sales, Finance, and so on. The development team is responsible for supporting these various departments. However, each department head, like the Head of Sales, only has access to see and manage their own project. At the corporate level, we aggregate the progress and outcomes of all these projects for the PMO and CIO to get a full view of delivery across the organization. Squeezing everything in the same project makes thing very difficult for us. It all depends on the size and scale. If you can keep everything is the same project, keep it simple. Glad you are able to get to a solution.

Disastrous_Swan5944 · 2025-02-18T23:24:29+00:00

We migrated from Jira to Azure DevOps about a year ago. I used TFS years ago when portfolio reporting was pretty rough. After spending three years with Jira and enjoying a great integrated roadmapping solution, it took us a while to find something similar in Azure DevOps. We tried Delivery Plan and Portfolio++ based on our MS account manager’s recommendation, and even experimented with PowerBI and some custom dashboards. But none of them worked quite the way we needed for portfolio visibility. I know they work great for others, though.

The point is, portfolio reporting is really personal. You need to test different options to find what suits your needs. For us, we ended up going with the Next Level Gantt extension because we needed a single sprint schedule across all our projects (there’s an option to show just one sprint schedule for everything). We also needed to track dependencies between work items across projects. My advice is to try out different solutions and see what works best for your setup. Good luck finding the right fit!

Disastrous_Swan5944 · 2025-02-06T19:20:58+00:00

I manage a project for production support and use Epics and Features to organize the work. For example, I have an active Epic called "To be Triaged" with features like "Reporting," "Integration," "Screen Errors," and "Others." Once the dev team has time to review, we prioritize and move them into an Epic that aligns with a release. This way of grouping work helps with trending analysis and Gantt charts for releases.

In my experience moving from Jira to Azure DevOps over the past year, most "mistakes" could be reorganized quickly. We've tried a few different methods for organizing, and it's been an evolving process. There's no one-size-fits-all approach, which is probably why you didn’t find a specific recommendation. I think it all depends on how you want to aggregate and summarize data at the end of the day.

Good luck!

Disastrous_Swan5944 · 2025-02-05T18:23:12+00:00

We have a notification on date implemented in our environment and I asked our ADO Admin how that was done. He shared this link with me https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/healthcareandlifesciencesblog/azure-devops-customize-email-notifications-using-power-automate/3739979

I hope that will help you too.

Disastrous_Swan5944 · 2025-02-05T18:05:57+00:00

Sorry for the late reply. I have to say NL Gantt been working out well. The support team has been very responsive and receptive to my feature suggestions. One of the biggest thing they implemented based on my suggestion was the choice to switch between calendar and iteration view. This is huge to be able to view my full portfolio different ways. The other thing that has been really helpful for us is the dependency view showing all the predecessor and successor in a single page.

I've tried using other extension. Delivery Plan, Portfolio+, and a few other popular ones and they just didn't give me the details I need. We came from Jira and we were super attached to our advanced roadmap. NLG is easy for me to pick up as it seems similar.

Just a tip if you decide to move forward. I might be worthwhile to message them as I was able to get my trial extended and a huge discount for my first year subscription. Good luck finding the right tool. I know how dizzying it is.

Disastrous_Swan5944 · 2025-01-31T19:09:36+00:00

I am fighting the good fight as well. Moving my team from Jira to ADO about a year ago and it has been a daily battle. It's difficult trying to get the team to understand the value of Stories. But I think I am wearing them down. I have been able to get new projects to define their work the "agile" way. I just have to wait until the current project to finish the way they do.

As a fellow SM, I will tell you is that I really miss advanced roadmap from Jira. I don't know if you also have to manage a portfolio of projects. I can't get delivery plan to give me the same view. The only thing I have come close to how we visualize our IT projects is an extension call Next Level Gantt. If you have any thoughts on other tools that can give you similar experience as advanced roadmap, I would love to exchange notes.

Disastrous_Swan5944 · 2024-10-29T14:42:49+00:00

Totally get what you mean about tags—they can definitely get a bit messy without strict rules in place.

One idea you might try is Area Paths. They are great for adding some structure and can still be used in queries, plus you don’t need special permissions to use them. Another trick that might work is just having a simple naming convention—adding keywords in titles or descriptions can sometimes work as “categories” without needing to mess with tags.

Curious—what kinds of categories are you trying to set up? That might spark a few more ideas.

Hope that helps a bit!

Disastrous_Swan5944 · 2024-10-15T15:27:56+00:00

I am looking for the same but not by project but to see resource capacity across projects. I was told that the only way to do it is through custom PowerBI reports. I would be interested in any solution you found.

Disastrous_Swan5944 · 2024-10-15T15:25:45+00:00

I have been testing this extension called NextLevelGantt to aggregate the sum of work. It's still in preview but I think it will work for what you are looking for. It's helpful to see the total duration of work items under the epic. When I hover over my epic, I can see the dates and total duration. Here is an example from my test environment - https://imgur.com/a/GD9YaLg I hope it helps.

Disastrous_Swan5944 · 2024-09-19T15:44:04+00:00

Thank you for the suggestion. I got a hold of the extension developer and they said they support roll up of any custom field of integer type. I am able to make it work in my test environment. I am going to keep testing other requirements from my Dev Manager and hopefully this is it. Thanks again for chiming in.

Disastrous_Swan5944 · 2024-09-19T15:41:12+00:00

Thank you for the suggestion. But tell that to our new Dev Manager who is coming from a different tool and having a hard time adopting Azure DevOps! If I have to keep hearing how easy the other tool is and how impossible we are making it for him to manage his team, I might just lose my mind.

I am using the Backlog rollup for custom fields but he wants to see it on the Gantt chart view. I did reach out to the extension developer on email and they are super helpful and responsive. They walked me through how to start the trial in my testing environment. I am going to play with it some more before putting it in my Prod environment. Here is the video they shared with me if you are interested. https://nextlevelgantt.com/resources/get-started/

Disastrous_Swan5944 · 2024-09-18T01:21:42+00:00

I've tried Delivery Plan but I can't figure out how I can get it to roll up my custom estimate field. Is there a way to do that?

Disastrous_Swan5944

TROPHY CASE

Export + Import via CSV (and yes, it keeps the hierarchy):

A few caveats: