Migrate TFS and ADO Server projects to Azure DevOps Services configured for inherrited process

[troyab]

Looking for guidance: TFS/ADO Server → Azure DevOps Services

Hi all,

We’re currently migrating two TFS collections and one ADO Server collection. We’ve had good success consolidating into ADO Server using nkdAgility tools.

Now we’ve been asked to move everything to Azure DevOps Services, ideally using the inherited process model.

We’ve tried some manual recreation and partial migrations, but we’re running into challenges:

• Global lists vs picklists (especially shared across projects)
• Project-specific lists tied to common fields
• Test case migration (no ReflectedWorkItemID)
• Fields that rely on calculations

From what I’ve read, it sounds like collection import might be the only way to preserve fidelity—but that would leave us with multiple orgs, which we’re trying to avoid.

Project-based migrations feel pretty lossy, even with good tooling.

Am I missing an approach here, or is this a trade-off between fidelity vs modernization?

Any guidance or lessons learned would be appreciated.

Post/References reviewed so far:

References

• NKDAgility discussions: #2423, #2033, #2482
• Microsoft Import Process: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/organizations/settings/work/import-process/import-process
• Upgrade XML to Inherited: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/organizations/settings/work/upgrade-hosted-to-inherited

Thanks,
Troy

[MrHinsh]

From what I’ve read, it sounds like collection import might be the only way to preserve fidelity—but that would leave us with multiple orgs, which we’re trying to avoid.

Correct. Its a hard choice.

On the up side Im building https://github.com/nkdAgility/azure-devops-migration-platform whihc will have significantly better fedelity