Backup and restore for empty email settings

Follow the following step-by-step guide if you need to import whole email configurations into a system that does not have any email settings set up yet. This could be the case when you need to migrate from your test environment to your production environment for example.

Prerequisites

It is a prerequisite that you have all projects, issue types, fields etc. already created in Jira before starting the Email This Issue Restore process. Everything you would like to set in Email This Issue has to be present before starting the backup, please make sure to check these beforehand.

Jira related dependencies:

  • In case of Projects, the name and the project key have to match

  • In case of Issue Type/Request type, the names have to match and they have to be available within the project

  • In case of (custom) Fields, the name and the field type have to match

  • In case of Project roles, the names have to match

  • In case of Issue Link Types, the names have to match

  • In case of Groups, the names have to match

  • In case of a User, the user key has to match

Email This Issue related dependencies:

  • Template: either imported or found by name

  • SMTP connection: either imported or found by name

  • Mail Account: either imported or found by name

Step-by-step procedure

There are four phases of a Backup/Restore process:

I. Creating a backup JSON file

II. Uploading the backup file to your new environment

III. Running the restore process

IV. Importing results

We go into details of the above steps in the following pages. If you follow them correctly, you should be able to carry out a backup of an old system and import all its Email This Issue settings into your new, empty Jira instance.

I. Creating a backup JSON file

To create a backup JSON file in the system from which you want to export your configurations, you will need to carry out the following steps:

  1. Go to SETTINGS --> Backup/Restore.

  2. Click on Backup (next to Add file) and optionally fill the Description of the export field, then press the Create button under the description field.

  3. Download the JSON file by clicking on the three dots at the end of the row and click on Download. Please note that the backup JSON file is by default stored at <Jira Home Directory>\data\emailissue\.

II. Uploading the backup file to your new environment

To restore your current settings on the same- or on another Jira server instance you will have to upload a JSON file:

  1. Navigate to Email This Issue - Administration - Backup/Restore.

  2. Click on Add file then click on Browse.

  3. Select the JSON file you wish to restore then click Upload (or drag and drop the downloaded file in your browser).

  4. The file is now listed in a table below and can be used to restore your settings.

III. Running the restore process

After uploading the JSON file you can now start the restore process:

  1. Click on the three dots at the end of an uploaded item

  2. Click on Restore

The restore configuration has four stages:

  1. Entity selection

  2. Conflict resolution

  3. Overview

  4. Importing results

Entity selection

During entity selection, you can select which parts of your configuration you would like to import into your server instance. In this case, we would like to import everything, so we will need to select everything as shown below.

The entities are presented with drop-down menus and are marked with a grey highlight, while the rows without any highlights are entity items.

The entity items can be one of the following types:

  • Name of an entity (e.g.: the name of a template)

  • A Project and/or an Issue type can be selected within the entity, in which case it is presented as <Project name>; <IssueType name>

  • A Project and/or an Issue type can be selected within the entity, in which case it is presented as <Project name>; <IssueType name>; <JQL filter>

Conflict resolution

After selecting the entities to be imported, click on Conflict resolution to proceed with the process.

During the import, there could be conflicts regarding the items you wish to restore, but in this case, because we are restoring data in a blank system, there are none. Click on Create new to do the following:

1. Click on the Insert imported parameters button on the right side of the drop-down menu to import the original names of the entities:

2. Add a scope to the imported entity (such as project/issue type/JQL setting):

Overview

After creating the new entities, click on Check to see if the resolutions have been successful. If all the conflicts are resolved, the overview page is displayed and you may proceed with the restore process by clicking on Confirm.

IV. Importing results

  1. After clicking on Confirm, the import results page displays the log of imported entities and their status. Imported entities can be found on the left pane, while the results of their import are presented on the right pane of the window.

  2. Click on Close to exit the import result page.

The import can have four results:

  • Success: all data has been imported successfully.

  • Warning: there were items during the import that could not be identified, therefore no action has been taken on those items.

  • Error: there was an error during the process such as a faulty JSON file. It does not mean that the restore has failed, it can still be successful, however, you need to check the configuration.

  • Failed: a fatal error has occurred, the import is failed, no action has been taken on any of the items.

    • In the case of "New entity", the new entity is NOT created.

    • In the case of "Overwrite existing", the existing entity will not be modified in any way.

On the results page a link is displayed next to the entity which takes you to the edit page of the entity.

Note: The import log can be found in the browser's console in a JSON format.

Result: If all the above steps are carried out properly, you should now have all the configurations of the backup file in your system.

See more:

Backup and restore administration

Backup and restore only parts of a configuration

Backup and restore every setting in the same instance

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