Copying multiple work items between projects

I know there are tools out there for us who are migrating work items between projects but I prefer the olf fascioned way using the excel integration.

So what I do is that I use the excel integration to view the items in the old project in one excel file. I first create a query which includes the items and the columns I wish to access. The reason for me creating a named query rather than using an ad hoc query is that if something happens, you know which items have been moved and which hasn't. I most commonly move one work item type at the time, for example.

Well of in Excel I use text to columns or concatenate the content of different columns to match the new template. I always save the old work item in one column or concatinated as a part of the text in a field.

I select from the new project to Add work items using Excel and now I have two excel spread sheets. I then start copying from the old template to the new. When I've copied title and the field in which I've saved the old work item ID I start pushing the data to the server.

One of the problems I experienced was when I filtered the original list in Excel and then copied one column at the time to the new excel file. What happened was that hidden rows from the original excel file was also copied, so there became a mis match in the list. Not good. So, filter the list in TFS and you won't have to experience that. I'm just glad that I saw it at once. One trick there is of course that if you have to copy columns one at the time to keep track of how many rows you have.

If I'm just copying one work item between projects I simply use the Copy work item functionality in TFS: you can use that to copy between projects.