Migrating Sprint Work Items from TFS 2010 sever to TFS 2012 Server

The 'Sprint' work item, used in TFS 2010 with the Scrum 1.0 process template, was removed from the Scrum 2.0 process template of TFS 2012. Sprint work item was used to enter details about sprint dates, goals and retrospective. However in TFS 2012, you can configure the sprint schedule as part of the new Agile Project Management feature, making the Sprint work item redundant in TFS 2012. 

But still you might need the old sprint work item for many reasons. As an example, In my office we had the need to migrate all the work item collections of each team projects from a TFS 2010 server to a TFS 2012 Server. But as Sprint is not a default work item in TFS 2012, we needed to find an alternative ways to achieve this. As far as I figure it out we had four options.

1) Use a Task work item or Product Backlog item adding custom fields to suit to transfer all data of a sprint work item.

2) Use SharePoint integration to store 'Sprint' as a document in TFS 2012 Server.

3) Create a new work item type similar to old Sprint work item type.

4) Import the Sprint work item using Process Editor and export it to the target project in TFS 2012 or via the witadmin-importwitd command.

The first two options are unacceptable. Therefore I am going to concentrate on last two options. 

Create a new work item type

Step 1:
In Visual Studio create a new XML file for your work item type.

Step 2: 
Copy and paste the content of old sprint template XML file in the new XML file and save it.

Step 3:

Move the new XML to the location where  the process template was downloaded and save XML file in the \WorkItem Tracking\TypeDefinitions folder under the name 'Sprint'.

Import the Sprint work item using Process Editor

To work with Process Editor you have to install TFS power tools before hand.

Step 1:
Select TOOLS(Menu) -> Process Editor -> Work Item Types -> Export WIT

Step 2:
Select the TFS server and the project collection.

















Step 3:
Select the project and 'Sprint' work item template.

You'll be asked to save Sprint process template. Save it, you'll need that to export it into the new TFS 2012 server. 

Step 4:
Import exported 'Sprint' Process template into the target project in TFS 2012 Server.

Note: If you have any problem in importing first remove required fields in the template, and try importing again.

The other way to do this is using witadmin commands. If you want to try witadmin commands, here try it.