Migrate from GUIDEcx to Jira

GUIDEcx Projects map to Jira Projects as the top-level container. The project name, description, planned end date, status, and all project-level custom fields migrate. Jira project type (Team-managed or Company-managed) is selected during scoping based on the customer's Jira tier and governance requirements. Team-managed projects offer faster setup; Company-managed projects are required if the customer plans to use shared schemes across multiple projects.

GUIDEcx Phases map to Jira Epics. Each Phase's name, description, planned start and end dates, status, and custom fields migrate. If the Phase was created from a GUIDE 1.0 template, we flag it during scoping and route it to the customer's GUIDE 2.0 clone step before export—1.0 templates do not appear in GUIDE 2.0 exports. Epic color and label assignment is configured at the destination. Task Groups nested under the Phase carry as Stories under the Epic.

GUIDEcx Milestones map either to Jira Epics (if they contain child Task Groups) or to Jira Fix Versions (if they represent a delivery checkpoint with no child hierarchy). The choice is made during scoping based on how the customer uses milestones. If milestone is used as a pure date marker, Fix Version (Releases) provides Jira-native deadline tracking. If milestones contain task work, Epic is the correct container.

GUIDEcx Task Groups map to Jira Stories. The Story carries the group name, description, assignees, planned dates, tags, and custom fields. Task Groups carry no independent duration—duration lives on the individual Tasks. We preserve the sort order of Task Groups within a Phase/Epic as Story order in the backlog.

Individual GUIDEcx Tasks map to Jira Subtasks when nested under a Story, or to Jira Tasks at the top project level. Task name, instructions (mapped to Description), due date, start date, status, priority, assignee, tags, and custom fields migrate. Checklist items migrate as a structured JSON array in a Jira custom field (no native checklist equivalent in Jira; Jira Software Premium includes checklist via issue history). Dependencies between Tasks migrate as Jira issue links (Blocks, is blocked by, is caused by).

GUIDEcx Custom Fields V2 (Text, Date, Email, Number, Dropdown, Multi-select, URL, Currency) map to equivalent Jira custom field types. GUIDEcx's field schema definitions are pulled from the GUIDE 2.0 Data Dictionary during scoping because standard exports do not include field type definitions—only values. We pre-create the Jira custom field schema in a Sandbox before production migration to validate type equivalence and field behavior.

GUIDEcx finish-to-start task dependencies map to Jira issue links. We preserve the dependency graph but flag that Jira does not auto-cascade dates when an upstream task completes—date adjustments require manual update or a Jira automation rule. We also flag known GUIDE 2.0 bugs: subtask-child shared dependencies and N/A-marked tasks that may produce incomplete or circular link graphs. These records are held in a separate reconciliation queue for manual resolution.

GUIDEcx tags migrate to Jira Labels. Tag names preserve verbatim. Jira Labels are a free-text tag field with autocomplete from existing values, providing functional parity for filtering and bulk-assignment purposes. Note that tags on template-level tasks in GUIDEcx do not always propagate to project-level tasks—a known GUIDEcx issue—so we cross-reference task-level tags at migration time rather than relying on template export alone.

GUIDEcx distinguishes internal team members from external customer contacts, with Customer Roles defined in Resource Management before assignment. Jira has no native equivalent to Customer Roles or the Compass portal. External stakeholders typically map to Jira project roles (Viewers, Users) with manual invitation, or to a Jira Service Management portal if the customer licenses it. We deliver a permission matrix mapping each GUIDEcx Customer Role to a Jira role and permission scheme for the admin to configure post-migration.

GUIDEcx attachments at the project level and phase level migrate to Jira issue attachments. We export file metadata separately from the standard export (which drops phase attachments for API-created phases—a known GUIDEcx bug) and re-attach at the destination. Large attachments (over 10 MB per Jira's Cloud limit) are flagged for the customer to upload manually or configure an Atlassian Cloud file storage add-on.

GUIDEcx time entries migrate to Jira worklogs on the corresponding issue. We flag that GUIDE 2.0 Time Records has documented missing values for several columns per the 2026 release notes—we cross-reference available time record fields against direct API calls and include only fields with populated values in the worklog migration. Jira requires the Work Management permission to log work on issues.

GUIDEcx task comments migrate to Jira issue comments. Comments are retrieved via the GUIDEcx API (not included in standard task export) and inserted as Jira comments on the mapped issue. Embedded links and @mentions do not carry over; we flag these for manual review post-migration. Comment timestamps preserve the original GUIDEcx date.