My lightning talk delivered at AtlasCamp 2012 describing new JSON format we introduced which lets you elegantly import much more data (including history) into JIRA than the via flat CSV file

1. SCREW JIRA CSV IMPORTER AND GET MORE
JIM JSON Importer

2. WHY
• CSV import is the most popular import source
• CSV is the easiest for many users and experts: it's easy to create a
text file from any script, language or SQL query
• CSV is bad for representing complex, hierarchical data and 1:N
relationships (comments, worklogs, subtasks, timestamps)
• CSV uses various ugly hacks to get more from flat file, like
author;date;comment body
• CSV importers does not support issue change history

3. JSON FORMAT
• Human readable (similarly to CSV)
• Less verbose than XML
• Easily represent hierarchical data and 1:N relationships
• Easy to generate, easy to author manually (Sample Data)
• Much more feature complete than CSV
• Support dynamic interpolation of variables just in time (Velocity) via JIM API.
• You cannot save it from a spreadsheet editor, but you can save it from JIRA :)

4. SAMPLE JSON FILE

5. DEMO

6. YES,
IT SUPPORTS ISSUE HISTORY

7. WHEN I WOULD USE IT
• Importing customer data
• Preparing demonstrations for customers
• Preparing training classes
• Preparing test data for your plugins/products

8. CAN I USE IT?
HOW ARE YOU SERIOUS ABOUT IT
• Well it's formally BETA,
but ...
• GreenHopper has just
started using it for its new
users onboarding (as of
6.0.3 - released 4 days ago)
• JIRA is to use it too very
soon

9. I WANT TO KNOW MORE
• Export issues to JSON from your own JIRA (enable modules
first!) and see how it looks like
• JIM JSON documentation on CAC is minimalistic
• JIM source code and test files (src/test/resources/sample/)
• GreenHopper sample data post for Experts

10. THE FUTURE
• Support for attachments from various sources (now only via
API)
• Maybe support for more meta-data (e.g. dashboards, saved
searches, project configuration)
• Your requirements & ideas!

11. THANK YOU