Can I move my existing project to the ITSM template?

No matter which service project template you started with, you can now access the full capabilities of Jira Service Management by adding IT service management (ITSM) work categories to your existing service projects. Learn how to add work categories to any of your service projects.

However, if you’d rather re-create your existing project as an out-of-the-box ITSM project, you’ll need to create a brand new ITSM project and replicate your existing setup within it. We only recommend a manual move if you have a strong understanding of Jira configuration and your existing project has minimal customization. Manually moving existing service projects to the new ITSM template is not recommended for large and complex projects that have been highly customized. You need to be a Jira admin to move your existing project to theIT service management template.

Learn about the IT service management template

The IT service management template has been designed for the needs of DevOps and IT, with many new features also suited to HR, Legal, and other organizations. The template comes with ITIL practices and categories embedded into the navigation. These categories contain features that help you structure your work, break down silos between teams, and facilitate high-velocity service management.

Learn more about the new IT service management template

Ensure the IT service management template suits your team

When you create a new ITSM project, you can take an onboarding tour to learn about the new features and decide if it’s the right choice for you and your team.

Compare your current project with the ITSM project, and take note of the differences between the available features and their configurations. Consider your request types, issue types, workflows, SLAs, automations, reports, and anything else that’s important to your team.

If your project uses, or is similar to the previous IT service desk template, and has minimal customization, it might be a good fit for manually moving to the IT service management template.

Learn how to set up an ITSM project

Follow best practices for moving to the new IT service management template

You’ll need to configure the new IT service management template so that it recreates the setup of your existing project and meets the needs of your team and work.

1. Associate issue types with the new project and update your workflows

You can use your existing issue type configuration by associating it with your new project. This will allow you to leverage all your existing workflows and field configurations when you create new request types. You can also use one of the out-of-the-box issue types provided in the new project.

Once you’ve moved your issue types into your new project, you can pull your workflows from these issue types. If you’ve made very few changes or customizations to your workflows, you could instead modify the default workflows to suit your needs.

Learn more about Jira Cloud workflows

To associate your issue types with the new project:

1. From your service project, select Project settings, then Request management, then Issue types.

2. Select Actions.

3. Select Edit issue types.

4. Drag and drop the issue types you want to associate with the new project from the right column ‘Issue types for current schemes’, to the left column ‘Available issue types’.
   
   

2. Recreate your request types and set up work categories

Re-create your request types in your new project, and set up your request forms and issue view. You can use the base configuration from the issues types you’ve added, or modify the default issue types. You’ll also need to assign your request types to work categories and reconfigure your portal groups.

• Learn how to set up request types in Jira Service Management

• Learn more about work categories and how to use them in your service project

• Learn how to organize request types into portal groups

• Learn about the issue view

Our recommended approach to categories is to modify the request types in the 'service requests' category to replicate your existing request types, modify the request types in the ‘problem’ category if needed, and to leave the request types in the ‘change’ and ‘incident’ categories as is.

3. Reconfigure automation

Recreate your automation rules so that everything continues to run smoothly. You’ll need to copy across any rules you created in Legacy Automation and re-create any custom rules you configured in your existing project.

• What is Legacy Automation?

• Add and configure automation rules

• Import and export automation rules

Your global automations will still work without any reconfiguration, but it’s best to check to make sure your rules are running smoothly. Legacy and project automations will need to be re-created.

For change management automations, we recommend using our out-of-the-box change request type and customizing it to suit your needs, as the ITSM project’s risk assessment features will work best with this request type.

4. Set up your SLAs

Copy over your SLAs so that you can continue to track how well your team is meeting the level of service expected by their customers.

Learn how to set up your SLA goals

5. Prepare your reports

Set up your reports and dashboards so that you have a better understanding of what’s happening in your new project. Think about your reporting gaps; you may need to report on both projects for a time during the move from one project to another.

• Learn about reports in Jira Service Management

• Learn how to create a custom report

• Learn how to add reports to a dashboard

Make sure you move across your existing requests to the new project if you need historical reporting. If you want a fresh start, you can skip this step.

6. Move existing requests to your new project

When you’re ready, you can move across the requests from your existing project to your new project.

• Move a request to another service project

• Bulk move multiple requests to your new project
  
  

7. Help your admins, agents, and help seekers adopt the new template

Add your team to the new project, and set up your permissions as they are in your existing project.
Let your agents and project admins know the change is coming, and give them an idea of what to expect so that they can get working right away when it arrives.

Learn more about global permissions

Other configurations may also be needed depending on the needs of your team and the level of customization in your existing project. If you have any questions, please contact Atlassian support.