Importing items from Jira or Azure DevOps
This playbook walks you through exporting your backlog from Jira or Azure DevOps and bringing it into Roadmap Flow as roadmap items. The import is one-time and append-only — it does not connect to Jira or Azure DevOps and will not sync changes automatically.
Available on Team plan. The importer is in Share → Import CSV.
Use this when
- You want to seed a roadmap from an existing backlog without retyping everything.
- You have a sprint or epic list in Jira or Azure DevOps that maps to roadmap-level work.
- You are migrating a set of items from one tool into Roadmap Flow.
What you need before starting
- Team plan access.
- A Jira or Azure DevOps project you can export a CSV from.
- A clear sense of which items belong on the roadmap — not every ticket needs to come across. Filter in your source tool first.
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Exporting from Jira
- Open the issue list for your project (not the board — the list view).
- Apply any filters you want before exporting (epic, sprint, label, etc.). Only the filtered results will be exported.
- Click Export → Export CSV (all fields) or Export CSV (current fields).
- "Current fields" is usually cleaner. Include only the columns you need.
- In the export dialog, choose the columns to include. The ones Roadmap Flow reads are:
| Jira column | Maps to | |---|---| | Summary | Title (required) | | Status | Status | | Priority | Priority | | Issue Type | Type | | Assignee | Assignee (display only) | | Due Date | Target date | | Issue URL / URL | Link back to the Jira ticket |
- Download the CSV file.
Tip: If your Jira export calls the title column "Summary" (not "Title"), Roadmap Flow auto-maps it. You do not need to rename the column header.
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Exporting from Azure DevOps
- Open Boards → Work Items (or use Queries for a filtered set).
- Create a query or flat list with the items you want. Run it.
- Click Export to CSV in the top-right toolbar.
- The columns Azure DevOps exports depend on the columns visible in your query. Add the ones Roadmap Flow reads:
| Azure DevOps column | Maps to | |---|---| | Work Item Title | Title (required) | | State | Status | | Priority | Priority | | Work Item Type | Type | | Assigned To | Assignee (display only) | | Target Date | Target date | | Work Item URL / URL | Link back to the work item |
- Download the CSV file.
Tip: Azure DevOps exports numeric priority values (1, 2, 3). Roadmap Flow maps 1 → P0, 2 → P1, 3 → P2 automatically.
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Importing into Roadmap Flow
- Open the roadmap you want to import into and go to Share.
- Scroll to Import CSV from Jira or Azure DevOps and choose your file.
- Roadmap Flow previews the first five rows with auto-mapped columns. Check that Title is mapped — it is required. Fix any columns that were not picked up automatically.
- Set the target Workstream and Default owner team for the imported items.
- Click Import [N] items. Items are appended to the roadmap.
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How status values are translated
Roadmap Flow converts Jira and Azure DevOps status names to its own statuses:
| Source status | Roadmap Flow status | |---|---| | To Do, Open, Backlog, New, Planned | Planned | | In Progress, Active, In Development, Doing | Discovery | | Done, Closed, Resolved, Complete | Done | | Blocked | Blocked | | At Risk | At Risk | | Testing, In Test, QA, Ready for Test | Testing | | Released, Shipped | Released | | On Hold, Parked, Cancelled | Parked | | Ready for Dev, Tech Readiness | Tech Readiness |
Any status not on this list maps to Planned.
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After importing
- Review the items. Open each one and set the horizon (Now / Next / Later), priority, and target period — the import does not set horizons.
- Clean up the title column. Ticket IDs in titles (e.g. "RF-001 — Do the thing") can be trimmed by editing the item directly.
- Run Check. The health check will flag any items missing owners, horizons, or periods.
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Common problems
"This file doesn't look like a CSV." Jira and Azure DevOps sometimes export Unicode or UTF-16 files on non-English systems. Open the file in Excel, then save as CSV UTF-8. Try the import again.
The Title column is not being mapped. Your export may have named it "Summary" (Jira) or "Work Item Title" (Azure DevOps). The importer looks for these automatically. If it still does not map, pick the correct column in the dropdown.
Items are importing with wrong statuses. Your project uses custom workflow states not in the mapping table above. After importing, filter by Planned and update the ones that should be something else.
I imported too many items. The import is append-only — it does not overwrite anything. Select the unwanted items in the Items tab and delete them.
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