Help Needed – Tagging Work Items to Custom Board Columns After Migration (On-Prem → Cloud)

[zafar1995]

Hi Martin,

I am migrating Azure DevOps Boards (On-Prem → Cloud) using NKD Agility’s Azure DevOps Migration Tools, and I’m facing the following issue:

The custom board columns from my On-Premise project are not showing up in Azure DevOps Cloud, and all migrated work items are appearing only under the default workflow columns (New, Active, Resolved, Closed).

I would like to understand how I can tag or associate the migrated work items to the custom board columns (for example, columns like “Needs Groomed” which were mapped to the New state in On-Prem).

Could you please guide me on the correct approach to:

Recreate or map these custom board columns in the target (Cloud) project and (I created the columns also in ADO Cloud but It is empty , Work Item is not getting tagged or listed)

Ensure migrated work items appear under their respective custom columns?

Thank you for your help.

[MrHinsh]

In Azure DevOps, there is a field called ColumnName which has this data. However, it's mapped to the team GUID and not a column that can be migrated.

At this time, there is no access to that column in the source or the target.

You could tag all the work items from each column before the migration to determine where they will be placed.

[zafar1995]

From what I’ve understood, the ColumnName field in Azure DevOps contains this board data, but it’s tied to a Team GUID and not a directly accessible field that can be migrated.

Could you please guide me on the correct approach to:

Recreate or map these custom board columns correctly in the Cloud project so that they align with the work item states; and

Ensure migrated work items appear under their respective custom columns (similar to their On-Prem board placement)?

As a workaround, I understand it might be possible to tag work items before migration based on their column location, but I’d like to confirm if there’s any other supported or automated method available.

Thank you in advance for your guidance and support.

[MrHinsh]

Recreate or map these custom board columns correctly in the Cloud project so that they align with the work item states; and Ensure migrated work items appear under their respective custom columns (similar to their On-Prem board placement)?

You would need to use the Azure DevOps API to do this.

As a workaround, I understand it might be possible to tag work items before migration based on their column location, but I’d like to confirm if there’s any other supported or automated method available.

As per my previous message there are no other suported methods.

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Support is offered through https://devopsmigration.io/support/