Convert a project to a different template or type

Some teams may want to change their project template to enjoy features provided by a different template. Or, you may not need all the bells and whistles and want to simplify how your team track work with a basic template. There are many reasons why a team may want to change their project type or template.

This page explains how to:

1. Create a new project, ready to receive your current project’s issues.

2. Find your current project’s issues in the issue navigator.

3. Bulk move your current project’s issues into your new project, effectively changing its template.

This page will be useful to you if:

• Your team currently works in one type of Jira project or a specific template (like Jira’s company-managed Scrum project or Jira Service Management’s internal service project) and you want to migrate to a different project type or template (like Jira’s team-managed Kanban project or task tracking project).

• Your team has been tracking work for a while in one project type but now needs the features of a different type.

• You’ve upgraded and your team wants to use the features of a different Jira product.

Before you begin

Each Jira product comes with its own project templates. For example, Jira provides Scrum and Kanban templates for teams who work using Agile methodologies. Jira Service Management comes with templates intended to help IT and customer service teams handle their incoming requests. Read more about the types of projects that come with each Jira product and their features.

Create a new project to receive your team’s work

You’ll need to have a new project available, so that the issues from your current project have a place to go. The first thing to do is create a new, clean project of the desired type.

To create a new project:

1. Choose Projects and select a project, or choose View all projects to visit the projects directory.

2. Select Create project.

3. Choose between a company-managed project or Try a team-managed project.

4. Doublecheck that the project you’re creating is the right template. If not, click Change template, and select from the templates you have access to. You can switch between company-managed and team-managed project templates using the link at the bottom of the screen.

5. Enter a name for your new project, and hit Create.

You’ve got a new project ready to receive your team’s issues.

Start the migration process

Now that your new project is ready, you need to find the issues from your current project and move them into the new one. To make bulk changes to issues, you need to filter them in Jira’s issue navigator:

1. Choose Filters in the navigation bar.

2. From the sidebar, select All issues.

3. Click the Project filter, and select the project you want to migrate from. If you're looking at the Advanced searching mode, you need to select Basic.

4. In the top-right corner, select more () > Bulk change all.

Bulk move issues into their new home

1. Select the issues you want to migrate and hit Next.

2. Select Move Issues and hit Next.

3. On the Select Projects and Issue Types screen, select where the issues from your old project will go. Select a destination project and issue type, and hit Next. This is the issue type that each issue in your old project will become in the new project.

4. On the Map Status for Target Project screen, select a destination status for each status in your old project. This is the status that each issue in your team-managed project will take on in the new project.

5. On the final screen, click Confirm.

Things to keep in mind when you change project types and templates

• Features differ between project types and templates. Be sure the new project you’re moving to has all the features your team needs to carry out their work. Read more about the types of projects that come with each Jira product and their features.

• If your team’s current project uses custom schemes (for issue types, workflows, security, notifications, etc.), you’ll have to associate the new project with those schemes.

• Sometimes things go badly. It’s always a good idea to create a backup before starting bulk operations. Read more about backing up your Jira Cloud site.

Things to keep in mind if you migrate from company-managed to team-managed

Team-managed projects and company-managed projects are technically quite different, so a few things can break when you migrate from a company-managed software project to a team-managed software project. For example:

• Epic links and issue links: Any issue links in your company-managed project will not exist in your team-managed project. The issues themselves will still exist, but the links between them won't.

• Subtasks: All subtasks will be lost in this migration process.

• Custom fields: These must be recreated in your new team-managed project.

• Story points estimation: This data will be lost, however you'll be able to start using story points estimation by enabling the estimation feature in your team-managed project.

Stuck? Need more help?

Contact the Atlassian Support team if you need further assistance.