Brief summary of this article:
In Targetprocess, you have the possibility to convert an entity into another type without losing any of its contents. For instance, you can convert Bugs to User Stories or Features, or vice versa.
How do I Convert An Entity?
There are a few ways and areas to perform such an action.
The most common way is to work directly with the right-click contextual menu (1) on cards on a board. Move your mouse over "Convert to..." (2). Select "User Story" from the sub menu (3) and confirm your action by clicking "Yes, I'm sure".
The same action is available in the detailed view of an entity. You'll find the convert action in the "Actions" menu.
Hierarchy Changes
Upgrades
User Story > Feature conversion
If you convert a User Story to a Feature, its Tasks become User Stories under the Feature.
Time entities posted to Tasks are carried over and become posted to the new User Stories. Time entities posted to the origin User Story become hidden and disappear from the system, because it is not possible to submit Time spent entities on Features at the moment.
Bugs related to an origin User Story become related to the new Feature.
Downgrades
If you demote an entity downward in the hierarchy then it's children get dissociated from the entity and don't also move downward. To preserve hierarchical dependencies, the user has to find each individual child, demote it, and reassociate it to its original parent. There is a recursive issue with the nested items as well.
User Story > Task conversion
If you convert a User Story to a Task, the tool suggests that you select a new parent User Story for the Task as Tasks in Targetprocess cannot exist without parent User Stories.
If an origin User Story has any nested Tasks, all of them are automatically deleted and disappear as a result. They are not transferred to a new parent User Story.
Convert Requests to Work Items
When a request is converted to a work item, requesters cannot access the new item via Service Desk anymore. Therefore, if you have Service Desk running for communication with requesters, create work items related to origin requests instead of converting requests to work items. When you execute the Create action, then a User Story, Bug, or Feature is created and its common fields are pre-filled with details taken from Request entity. A work item and initial Request become related for traceability. Relations tabs in both the work item and Request show this link. Your product team can start work on a User Story, Bug, or Feature. And your support team can continue to communicate with your customers via origin Request through Service Desk.
Convert items having no assigned Portfolio (Project) into Assignables
If you convert an entity without portfolios (projects) assigned to an entity having portfolio (project) required, the tool suggests that you select a parent Portfolio (Project) for the item as it cannot exist without Portfolio (Project).
Troubleshooting
Conversion fails when an origin entity has a collection of Times / Comments / Attachments and the user who performs the conversion has no role-based permissions to modify items of these types.
Conversion may fail when an origin entity has multiple nested entities and there are relations between some of these items.
It is not possible to hide Convert buttons and menu items from the UI.
It is not possible to Convert many items as batch action.
Details about conversions do not appear in History of newly created entities.
When an entity is converted, its nested items are recreated and it may cause many unintended email notifications.
Undo Convert Action
It is not possible to undo the entity conversions, so perform them carefully. If you converted an entity by mistake and it causes massive loss of important data, contact our Support Team for assistance - we'll try to help to restore your corrupted data.
Traceability from Origin Numeric IDs
When you convert an entity its ID changes automatically as Targetprocess system assigns free IDs to all new items incrementally. What happens with old IDs? They are still active - in most places where they might be required.
Search tool automatically discovers and opens detailed pages of 'new' converted entities when users search for origin IDs.
Hyperlinks to origin items are still active after conversions. Users are redirected to 'new' entities when they try to open the ‘old’ direct links.
It is not possible to preserve origin ID when conversion happens. We’ve researched various approaches to improve this behavior and encountered multiple obstacles on the path. It would require much development effort to solve this technical problem. We've postponed final solution for future releases.
Retrieve origin ID within REST API
There are API resource that contain details about all conversion actions. We explain how to use them here: Converted Entities.
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