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About importing from Mantis

JIRA ships with the JIRA Importers Plugin pre-installed, so that you can import your bugs from Mantis.

Version 2.0 or later of the JIRA Importers Plugin is compatible with Mantis versions 1.1.8 to 1.2.4. The JIRA Importers Plugin requires your Mantis database to be MySQL or PostgreSQL. (The JIRA Importers Plugin has also been reported to work with MS SQL, Oracle and DB2, but it has not been tested against these databases.)

For the very latest version of the JIRA Importers Plugin, please visit plugins.atlassian.com.

The import process consists of:

Running the Import Wizard to configure the import process and save it into a configuration file. (Note that you can edit your configuration file later by by re-running the Import Wizard and providing the name of your existing configuration file.)
Configuring the connection from your JIRA server to the Mantis database.
Running the import using your saved configuration file. You will typically do this several times (e.g. once or more for tests, once for production).

These steps are described in more detail below.

On this page:

During the import process, the following data is copied from the Mantis database into JIRA:

In Mantis	In JIRA	Import Notes
Project Sub Project	Project	Mantis data is imported on a per-project basis. You can either specify an existing JIRA project as the target, or the importer will automatically create a project(s) for you at time of import. (For more information about JIRA projects, please see Defining a Project.)
Category	Component	You can choose to have the importer automatically create your Mantis components in JIRA, or choose to have bugs imported into no component in JIRA.
Version	Fix Version	Versions are imported from Mantis (if you choose). After importing, you can manually set appropriate versions to the Released state in JIRA if you wish.
Bug	Issue	Every Mantis bug becomes a JIRA issue of type 'Bug'.
ID	Bug Import ID	Each imported issue will be given a new JIRA ID, and the old Mantis ID will be saved into a JIRA custom field called 'Bug Import ID'. This custom field is searchable, so you can search for JIRA issues by their old Mantis ID. If you don't need this custom field, delete it or 'hide' it (as described in Specifying Field Behaviour).
Summary	Summary
Description	Description	Within text, Mantis links (e.g. #1234) are converted to JIRA links (e.g. TST-123).
Comments	Comments	Within text, Mantis links (e.g. #1234) are converted to JIRA links (e.g. TST-123).
Attachments	Attachments	Attachments are extracted from the Mantis database and saved to disk. To specify the location on disk, see Configuring File Attachments.
Priority	Priority (or a custom field)	You can choose to map one of either the Mantis Priority field or the Mantis Severity field (see below) to the built-in JIRA Priority field, and the other to a custom field. (Alternatively, you can choose to map both the Mantis Priority field and the Mantis Severity field to JIRA custom fields.) When importing into the JIRA Priority field, you can configure mapping of specific Mantis values to specific JIRA values.
Severity	Priority (or a custom field)	You can choose to map one of either the Mantis Priority field (see above) or the Mantis Severity field to the built-in JIRA Priority field, and the other to a custom field. (Alternatively, you can choose to map both the Mantis Priority field and the Mantis Severity field to JIRA custom fields.) When importing into the JIRA Priority field, you can configure mapping of specific Mantis values to specific JIRA values.
Status	Status	You can configure mapping of specific Mantis values to specific JIRA values, provided you create your workflows in JIRA before running the importer. The JIRA 'Status' field is integral to JIRA workflow. To learn more, please see What is Workflow. To create a JIRA workflow, please see Configuring Workflow. To create a JIRA workflow scheme (which you can then associate with appropriate projects and Issue Types), please see Activating Workflow.
Resolution	Resolution	You can configure mapping of specific Mantis values to specific JIRA values.
Relationships	Links	You can configure mapping of specific Mantis relationship types to JIRA link types. In JIRA, you can configure different types of links (please see Configuring Issue Linking).
CC List	Watchers
User	User	You can choose to have the importer automatically create JIRA users for any Mantis users who do not already exist in JIRA. Users who interacted with the Mantis system will be created as active accounts in JIRA. Other users will be imported into a special group called "mantis-import-unused-users" and will be deactivated. Passwords from Mantis are not imported (as they are hashed in the database). Users from Mantis will need to get their passwords emailed to them the first time they log into JIRA. Users with no real name stored in Mantis will get the portion of their email address (login name) before the "@" character as their Full Name in JIRA. If you are using External User Management, the import process will not be able to create JIRA users; instead, the importer will give you a list of any new users that need to be created. You will need to create the users in your external user repository before commencing the import. If you have a user-limited license (e.g. personal license), and the number of required users is larger than the limit, then the import will be stopped. A page will be displayed showing a list of users that can't be created.
Other fields	Custom fields	If your Mantis system contains any custom fields, you can choose to map them to specific JIRA custom field(s). If your custom fields don't yet exist in JIRA, the importer can automatically create them for you.

How to import from Mantis

Before you begin, please backup your JIRA data.
Log in to JIRA as as a user with the 'JIRA Administrators' global permission.
Select 'Administration' > 'System' > 'Import & Export' > 'External System Import' > 'Mantis'.
The 'Import issues from a Mantis installation' page will be displayed:
Screenshot 1: the 'Import issues from a Mantis installation' page
If you don't yet have a configuration file (or if you want to create a new one, or update the one you have), leave the 'Existing Configuration File' field blank and click 'Next' to create a new Configuration File:
- Project Key Mappings: For each Mantis project that you wish to import into JIRA, select the JIRA 'Project category' (if applicable) and the JIRA 'Project key'.
  - To import into an existing JIRA project, type a project key (or project name) that already exists in JIRA.
    There is no warning or error message if you select an existing key (or existing project name with a different key). The importer will import issues to the project specified by the key (or project name).
  - To create a new JIRA project and import into it, type a project key that does not yet exist in JIRA.
    The JIRA 'Project key' will be the prefix for the IDs of all issues in the given project.
- Custom Fields: If your Mantis system contains any custom fields, you can either choose the JIRA custom field to which they will be mapped, or choose to have the importer automatically create a new custom field(s) in JIRA.
  Regardless of whether you specify mapping, the importer will automatically create a JIRA custom field for each extra Mantis field, unless you un-check the 'Create new custom fields' option on the final 'Import Data' screen (see Screenshot 2 below).
- Field Value Mappings:
  - 'Priority' field — If you don't specify mappings, the importer will automatically create missing values in JIRA and will ensure that the issues are migrated with the correct priority (e.g. "Normal" in Mantis to newly-created "Normal" in JIRA).
  - Usernames — If you don't specify mapping, the importer will automatically map Mantis usernames to JIRA usernames (lowercase).
    Regardless of whether you specify mapping, JIRA will automatically create usernames for missing users unless you un-check the 'Create new users' option on the final 'Import Data' screen (see Screenshot 2 below).
  - 'Status' field — It is mandatory to map the Mantis 'Status' field to specific values of the JIRA 'Status' field, as the JIRA 'Status' field is integral to JIRA workflow (to learn more, please see What is Workflow and Configuring Workflow).
  - 'Resolution' field — If you don't specify mapping, the importer will create corresponding Resolutions in JIRA instead of using the existing ones.
- Link Types: To learn more about JIRA link types, please see Configuring Issue Linking.
Configure the connection details to your Mantis database as follows:
- Mantis URL — the URL of your Mantis instance.
- Mantis Login — the Mantis user to use during the import.
- Mantis Password — the password of the Mantis user to use during the import.
- Database URL — the location of the Mantis MySQL database server. Enter this in the following format:
  jdbc:mysql:host[:port]/databasename?parameters
  - host — the server hosting the Mantis MySQL database. You can specify which incoming TCP connections to allow by using the port parameter (defaults to 3306).
  - databasename — the name of the Mantis MySQL database (usually 'bugtracker').
    The database name, username and user password can usually be found in the Mantis file 'config_inc.php' (the default username is "root", default password is empty). See also http://www.mantisbt.org/manual/manual.configuration.database.php
- Database Login — the database user that JIRA will use to access the Mantis database.
  Ensure that this account can access your Mantis database from the machine where JIRA is running.
- Database Password — the password of the database user that JIRA will use to access the Mantis database.
- Driver Name — The fully qualified name of the base class of the JDBC driver to use.:
  - "com.mysql.jdbc.Driver" for MySQL.
  - "org.postgresql.Driver" for PostgreSQL.
The 'Import Data' page will then be displayed with the following options:
- 'Create new users' — It is generally recommended that you leave this set to 'ON'. Only select 'OFF' if you do not want JIRA to automatically create new usernames for Mantis users who do not already exist in JIRA.
- 'Create new versions' — It is generally recommended that you leave this set to 'ON'. Only select 'OFF' if you do not want JIRA to automatically create new versions for Mantis 'milestones' which do not already exist in JIRA.
- 'Create new components' — It is generally recommended that you leave this set to 'ON'. Only select 'OFF' if you do not want JIRA to automatically create new components for Mantis components (categories) which do not already exist in JIRA.
- 'Create new custom fields' — It is generally recommended that you leave this set to 'ON'. Only select 'OFF' if you do not want JIRA to automatically create custom fields for Mantis fields which do not have a corresponding field in JIRA.
- 'Maximum issues and failues' — If you wish, specify a maximum number of failed issues after which the importer will stop. If you want the import to continue regardless of any failures, leave this field blank. If your Mantis instance has a large number of issues, it's generally a good idea to run first the importer on a limited number of issues (e.g. 100), then manually inspect the imported issues to confirm whether your configuration file was specified correctly. When the results are satisfactory, you can run the import with no limit.
The importer will display updates as the import progresses, then a success message when the import is complete. You can download the import log if you wish.

Congratulations, you have successfully imported your Mantis projects into JIRA! If you have any questions or encounter any problems, please contact Atlassian support.