Atlassian Cloud Migration Project

What is Atlassian?

Atlassian provides project management and collaborative tools through a suite of products. Their solutions are designed to streamline software development and team collaboration.

Washington University currently uses four Atlassian tools: Confluence, Jira, Bitbucket, and Bamboo. (Bitbucket and Bamboo are out of scope for this project.)

• Confluence provides the tools necessary for collaboration and documentation.
• Jira provides the tools necessary for effectively planning, tracking and releasing projects.

Project Scope and Timeline

Scope

Currently, WashU IT runs Atlassian products within our on-premise data centers. Atlassian will discontinue support for on-premise instances in February of 2024. The Atlassian Cloud project intends to migrate Confluence and Jira applications to the Atlassian Cloud in order to modernize user experience, reduce security vulnerabilities, reduce infrastructure costs, introduce licensing efficiencies, and align with WashU IT’s cloud-first strategy.

Timeline

The project timeline occurs in three phases:

Phase 1: Complete – Explore and document environment, investigate apps, confirm migration requirements, and investigate migration challenges.

Phase 2: Validate Phase I discovery, Configure Cloud instance.

Group 1 migration is tentatively scheduled March 30 through April 2 and will include all Confluence pages and Jira projects managed by the following groups and departments:

• Enterprise Applications
• Platform Engineering/Infrastructure
• Information Security
• End User Services
• Data Management
• Workday SDM

Phase 3: Group 2 migration is tentatively scheduled for late Spring 2023 and will include all Confluence pages and Jira projects managed by the following groups and departments:

• RIS
• MGI
• University Advancement
• Marketing & Communications
• WUSM – I2, Alliance, Oncore, Siteman
• Schools: McKelvey, ArtSci
• Research groups

Outreach

Confluence space and Jira project owners will be contacted ahead of migration in order to:

• Verify the primary Confluence/Jira stakeholders for your business area
• Understand which Confluence spaces/Jira projects are actively used and which can be archived
• Understand your critical project timelines/milestones for migration phase scheduling
• Establish individuals responsible for testing the Cloud migration for your business area
• Establish communication avenues to keep you informed, including webpages, newsletters, emails, meetings with standing committees, etc.

Operational communications, updates, and training opportunities will be sent to all current Confluence and Jira users throughout the process.

User Migration Preparation

As we plan for the migration to the Atlassian Cloud, we have been documenting actions users can take to prepare their Confluence spaces and Jira projects ahead of, or directly following, migration.

These actions are itemized in the charts below. To access more detailed instructions, please visit Confluence and Jira User Migration Preparation (Word).

Confluence Migration Actions Summary

Feature / Functionality	Pre-Migration Actions	Post-Migration Actions
Children Display Macro	N/A	Edit the macro and increase child depth of descendants by 1. Edit the macro and choose Alphabetical in the Sort Order field.
Comala Boards	N/A	Recreate Comala boards in Cloud.
External links to Confluence	N/A	Manually reconfigure links to reference Cloud URLs.
Hyperlinks using the Web Link Option	N/A	System administrators are implementing a workaround. Nothing will need to be done by the end user.
Personal Avatars	N/A	Reassign personal avatars in Cloud
Personal Drafts	Publish any drafts you’d like to migrate.	N/A
Personal Spaces	N/A	Recreate personal spaces in Cloud.
Space Shortcuts	N/A	Recreate space shortcuts in Cloud.
Team Calendars	Export your team calendar.	Import your team calendar.

Jira Migration Actions Summary

Feature / Functionality	Pre-Migration Actions	Post-Migration Actions
Automation (Group 2 only)	N/A	Recreate automation rules in Cloud.
Boards not connected to migrating projects	N/A	Recreate necessary Scrum and Kanban boards in Cloud.
Cross-Project Boards	N/A	Recreate cross-project boards in Cloud.
Dashboards	N/A	System administrators are currently testing a workaround.
External links to Jira	N/A	Manually reconfigure links to reference Cloud URLs.
Filters on boards that are not migrated	This depends on permissions. System administrators are working to learn more.	This depends on permissions. System administrators are working to learn more.
Links to issues or entities that are not migrated	N/A	No actions recommended. These will be available as read-only until October 2023.
Links to Jira or Confluence in text fields	N/A	Reconfigure links in comments or details fields to the new Cloud URLs.
Personal Avatars	N/A	Reassign personal avatars in Cloud.
Project Avatars	N/A	Reassign project avatars in Cloud.
ProForma (Group 2 only)	N/A, not available in Cloud	The system administrators are researching alternatives.
Timesheet Gadgets	N/A	Re-add timesheet gadgets to dashboards following migration.

Inventory

The project team has been communicating with Confluence space and Jira project owners to determine the uses and needs for each. The tables below itemize all spaces and projects that currently exist, their disposition (whether to migrate, archive, or delete), and their tentative migration group.

If you have questions concerning your space or project, please contact the project team.

• Confluence Space Inventory (in Excel)
• Jira Project Inventory (in Excel)

Atlassian Cloud Migration Training Resources

Confluence and Jira users can sign up for live end-user training sessions for the Atlassian Cloud versions of Confluence and Jira through Learn@Work.  

Select a topic below to access training materials to learn more about the new Cloud environment and important migration considerations.

FAQ