Migrate to Agile Manager

Migrating data to Agile Manager consists of the following high-level steps:

  1. Export data from your current project management tool.
  2. Copy the data to Agile Manager import templates.
  3. Use the saved template files to import the data to Agile Manager.

Before migrating, take a few minutes to review the data structure in Agile Manager.

Data in Agile Manager is first divided into Workspaces. Site administrators can create multiple workspaces to represent multiple projects, programs, or products managed on the same Agile Manager site.

Administrators can also assign users to one or more workspaces and define workspace administrators to configure specific settings. Users can only access workspaces that they are assigned to. Data cannot be shared or viewed across workspaces, and users switch back and forth to view data in different workspaces.

Releases and teams are also structured within individual workspaces, and do not cross workspaces.

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• Themes are the top-level objectives your product must meet, or the product's high-level functional areas. Themes are implemented across releases.

• Themes are broken down into Features, which are the areas of a product typically implemented within the scope of a release.

• Features are further broken down into Backlog Items, which are the user stories developed and defects fixed by your teams.

• Features and backlog items are developed during the scope of a Release, by members of a specific Team.

• Themes, features, backlog items, and teams can all be associated with specific Applications. Applications are the different components developed by your teams, and can be used to hide data that isn’t relevant to you from in grids, graphs, and widgets.

Associations with applications are inherited from a theme or feature’s child items.

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When a backlog item is associated with an application, its parent feature and theme is also associated with that application.

Features can consist of several backlog item, implemented in several applications. By the same token, themes can consist of several features, each associated with one or more applications.

Individual backlog items can be associated with only a single application.

Migrating to Agile Manager consists of the following steps:

  1. You’ll first need to identify the items you want to migrate to Agile Manager. In your current tool, filter the items you want to migrate, and export them to an Excel file.

    It makes most sense to migrate future backlog items only, and not historical information. Agile Manager will not create historical graphs based on migrated data.

    Caution: You’ll need to migrate user stories and defects into Agile Manager separately. Export them from your current tool separately to ensure that nothing ends up in the wrong place, or duplicated.

    Additionally, data is imported to Agile Manager per workspace. If you have data that you want to import to separate Agile Manager workspaces, export them separately to ensure that nothing ends up in the wrong place, or duplicated.

    If you have no data hierarchy in your current tool, but you want to retain your currently used tool release trains, migrate your data to the same Agile Manager site and workspace. Use applications within that workspace to separate between types of backlog items.

  2. User stories and defects are imported to Agile Manager using Excel templates, accessed from Agile Manager. Download these templates from the Agile Manager Help Center, here:

  3. When you migrate, you have a variety of options for how to match the data in your current tool with Agile Manager hierarchical elements, depending on how your currently used tool’s projects are structured.

    Here are some out-of-the-box fields in Agile Manager:

    Agile Manager field - user stories Agile Manager field - defects

    Creation date

    This date is automatically set to the date you import the items.

    Detected on Date
    - Defect Status
    Description Description
    Story Points Story Points

    Priority (User Story)

    Must be one of the following: 1-High; 2-Medium; 3-Low

    Priority (Defect)

    Must be one of the following: 1-Show Stopper; 2-High; 3-Medium; 4-Low
    Sprint Sprint
    Name Summary
    Author

    Detected By
    Release Release
    -

    Severity

    Must be one of the following: 1-Critical; 2-High; 3-Medium; 4-Low

    The Agile Manager import templates also provide some additional fields, for Themes, Features, Applications, and Teams.

    Importing data not supported by default in Agile Manager

    Some data exported from your current tool may not be supported in the Agile Manager import template by default. In such cases, you’ll need to decide whether you want to import this data, or define it from scratch in Agile Manager.

    If you want to import this data, you can do so using one or more of the following options:

    Create custom fields

    Site administrators can create custom fields in Agile Manager that apply to all workspaces in the site. Workspace administrators can create custom fields for their workspace.

    You can create up to 12 fields for each item type. The site administrator can divide this quota between the site and workspace levels. For details, see Manage custom fields.

    Once you have these custom fields created in Agile Manager, add them as columns to your import templates. Be sure to add only fields that are related to the entity you are importing; add user story fields to the user story template, and defect fields to the defects template.

    If you have exhausted the maximum number of custom fields available and still have additional data to migrate, migrate data as comments, or as part of the Description field.
    Migrate additional data as a comment

    Add a column to each of the import templates, labeled Comments. Copy your additional currently used tool’s data to these additional columns, for user stories and defects, respectively. The data is migrated as plain text as a user story or defect comment.
    Migrate additional data via the Description field

    Copy the additional data to the end of the relevant cells in the Description column. This data is migrated as plain text to the user story or defect description.

  4. Copy the data from the file(s) you exported from your current tool to import templates downloaded from Agile Manager. Use the tables in the previous step for recommendations about how to match fields from your current tool and fields in Agile Manager. If you want to associate each item with an application, add that data to the import files.

    Note: There are two template files, one for user stories and one for defects. Make sure that you copy the data to the correct template.

  5. Features and themes are automatically created when you import backlog items, if there are new features and themes listed in the import file.

    However, other data, including applications, release data, and any custom fields you require, is not automatically created when you import user stories and defects to Agile Manager. If you define this data in your import files, your Agile Manager site and workspace must be prepared beforehand with the same data.

    Note: The names defined in Agile Manager must match those defined in the import files exactly.

    The following data must be defined in Agile Manager before you import backlog items associated with this data:

    Applications

    Defined on the Agile Manager Workspace > Applications configuration tab. For details, see Work with applications.
    Releases

    Configured on the Agile Manager Workspace > Releases configuration tab. For details, see Configure releases.
    Teams

    Configured on the Agile Manager Workspace > Teams configuration tab, or for specific releases. For details, see Manage teams for a release.
    Sprints

    Defined for each release. For details, see Configure release sprints.
    Custom fields

    Defined on the Agile Manager Site > Custom Fields configuration tab. For details, see Manage custom fields.

  6. In Agile Manager, you can import data to the Product Backlog or Release Backlog grids.

    • If you are importing all of your data to a single release, import it to the Release Management > Release Backlog grid.
    • If the data you are importing spans multiple releases, import it to the Product Backlog > Backlog grid.
    • If you are importing data to multiple workspaces, do so using separate import files.

    To import data, do the following:

    1. In the grid header, select More Actions > Import Backlog.

    2. Select the type of items you want to import and click Let’s Begin!

    3. Browse to and select the template file you populated previously. Make sure you select the correct file for the type of item you are importing.

      • Agile Manager validates the data you are importing, and notifies you about the number of items that will be created.
      • Agile Manager also estimates how long the import will take. This is especially useful when importing a very large amount of items.
    1. When you’re ready to begin, click Import. Agile Manager notifies you when the import is complete.