Launching import of a complete project (configuration, issues and attachments)

First of all, you require a project file that has been exported with Project Configurator from the source instance. Place that file in a folder called "projectconfigurator" located in the directory JIRA_HOME/import of the target JIRA installation.

Now, go to the add-on page. On the menu at the left you will see a section for Project Configurator. In that section there is a menu entry called "Import complete project"

Click on that entry and you will see a page like this:

Let us review the contents of this page:

• At the top, there is a text box where you have to specify the name of the file with the project (or projects) you want to import. Note that under the text box there is a reminder that the file must be placed in the "projectconfigurator" folder inside the JIRA_HOME/import directory. This reminder can be useful if you have doubts about the location of that directory. If you have not copied the file to import in the required folder, do it now.
• A check box to run first a simulated configuration import. If this option is checked, a simulated configuraton import will be run first and the results shown, so that you can review them and verify that they do not have any undesired impact on other projects in the target instance. It is an excellent idea to enable this option, unless you know very well the changes that will be performed. The page will be similar to this one:

The page includes a message that reminds you to check the proposed changes. If you are not happy with the configuration changes shown in the simulation, do not go ahead with the import. Otherwise, if you agree with those changes, click on the "Next" button to launch the real import.

• The rest of controls in the starting page:
  • Checkbox "Create other projects?"
  • Checkbox "Smart custom field contexts"
  • Checkbox "Continue on errors found in dashboards and filters"
  • Multiselect list "Do not load"

Have the same purpose as explained in this page about launching a configuration import. Probably, you will notice that the list of objects that can be skipped in the "Do not load" list is smaller than in the same list for a configuration-only import. The reason is that for some object types, only one option makes sense (either to load or to ignore them) when data for those projects will be imported later. These object types have been removed from the list, as the user does not really have a choice about them.

Uncompressing the zip file

The first step of the import will be uncompressing the zip file to a temporary folder and performing some preliminary checks on it. Starting with version 2.1.2 of Project Configurator, this step is performed as a background task and the user gets feedback about its progress through a progress bar. This is relevant in the case of large files, which could take some minutes to uncompress. If any error is detected in this first step, the user will be warned with a page like this:

In this example, the error message means the file to import was not a valid zip file.