Zephyr Squad for Jira: Migration Evaluation

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In this post we share our experience with migrating Zephyr Squad – Test Management for Jira, (previously known as Zephyr for Jira) developed by SmartBear.

Before migrating Zephyr, you should take the time to understand what and how attributes are migrated. Not only does shifting Zephyr data to the Cloud require a good knowledge of Jira migration tools, but also Zephyr Squad Migration Tools. Atlassian and SmartBear provide limited documentation and support resources to aid you in your migration.

Feature Compatibility

Most of the features offered on Zephyr Squad’s Server environment are also available on Cloud, but there a few features that are exclusive to either the Server or Cloud environment. Features that are not available include:

Workflow Validator in Global Settings
Archiving projects
Reordering test executions
Zephyr permissions

Cloud does offer new functionality:

ADG UI in Global settings
Ability to use Jira and Zephyr filters with the traceability matrix
Native support for BDD

For a complete list of feature differences, take a look at this comparison of Zephyr features.

Even though there are feature discrepancies between the environments, SmartBear continues to bring more functionality to the Cloud offering of Zephyr Squad.

Migration Method and Complexity

One method to migrate Zephyr is to use a Zephyr migration tool. A post by Alex Matveev outlines a few different options of applying the Zephyr Squad Migration Tool; however, it does not have information on migrating resources associated with test cases like cycles, folders, historical data on executions, and attachments.

Another approach to migrating Zephyr data is to complete a full site import and then use scripting to move Zephyr Squad artifacts. In order to move these artifacts you will need to enable the Zephyr API (ZAPI), which is available by installing Zephyr Squad’s ZAPI add-on on both Server and Cloud.

In mid-October 2021, support to migrate Zephyr with the Jira Cloud Migration Assistant (JCMA) became available within the JCMA beta. The Zephyr Squad Server Documentation contains instructions on how it can migrate via the JCMA. This support is only accessible to versions six-and-up of the Zephyr Squad Server app and does not migrate data such as archived tests or ZBot agents from the test automation.

Migration Support Available

While Zephyr documentation provides limited documentation about Zephyr migration, SmartBear has produced step-by-step documentation to support Server to Cloud migration with the JCMA and open support tools. You can always contact SmartBear by submitting a support request to get assistance on issues specific to your migration.

Also we have written a detailed, technical post about the Zephyr migration journey: Zephyr for Jira: Migrating to the Cloud.

Possible Challenges

When we completed our Server to Cloud Zephyr migration, we encountered several issues:

Since the Cloud app may be feature light, non-hosted environments may leave app providers to host and run their code as it would have run on a Jira Server.

Despite the benefits of using ZAPI, there are no scripts available for pulling and pushing data between environments.
If you are implementing a full site import, it will remove the Zephyr Squad plug-in which will cause Zephyr Squad’s test issue type to be undefined and break the Jira Cloud instance after Zephyr Squad is re-installed.
Any attachments within the test executions migrated by the JCMA beta are not migrated properly, leaving the migrated file as empty in Cloud.

Also, ZAPI cannot be installed if Zephyr Squad was previously installed to the Jira Cloud instance. This should not be an issue as Zephyr Squad for Cloud is supposed to consist of ZAPI’s API and materials.

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