Can you export history from Visual Studio Online to another ALM system?

Question

I’m beginning to consider moving an on-prem TFS 2012 installation to Visual Studio Online. So, one of the first things I started investigating was how we might export our content back out of VSO in the future if we ever decided we needed to. The more I’m looking, the less I’m finding. It seems there was a temporary time period when VSO first went GA that Microsoft offered that capability if you asked to have it done (http://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/news/2014-apr-3-vso.aspx). By implication, that would seem to mean that this isn’t something that is a planned feature of VSO.

Making a commitment to house all of my source and ALM data in a repository I’d effectively be barred from leaving doesn’t sound particularly appealing. Am I missing something, or does Microsoft really not have export capabilities on their VSO product roadmap? It would seem that this would be a show-stopper for many organizations from coming onto VSO, which is a perfect application to put into the cloud IMHO.

Answer 1

For code you can use Git. Even if you start with TFVC, you can use Git-TF. Clone with the --deep parameter to get the full history in a new Git repo, then push back to a new project (Git or TFVC).

For work items the TEAM tab in Microsoft Excel is a very capable export facility for work items, though you don't get links (other than parent child), or attachments.

1. In the original project, create a query that lists all your work items.

2. Open Excel, go to the TEAM tab and click 'New List', you should get the option to select your project and the query you just created.

3. In the Work Items tab select the 'Choose Columns' button and select all the columns you want to migrate.

4. If migrating to another TFS / VSO project, create that project, open another list in Excel connected to the new project.

5. Cut and paste all the work items from the original project list to the new project list (excluding the Id column).

6. Publish.

voilà.