Migrating from Jira DC or Server to Jira Cloud
If you and your team are moving from Jira Data Center (DC) or Server to Jira Cloud, you’re probably wondering how that affects your Balsamiq.
The good news is that the process is very easy. As long as you have the Balsamiq integration installed on your Jira Cloud instance, and your migration plan includes attachments, your Balsamiq Projects should be migrated seamlessly. Our modern Jira Integrations all use the same file format, meaning our Jira Cloud integration will be able to read your Jira wireframes without issue.
If some of your issues have wireframes made with our legacy Balsamiq Mockups for Jira integration, they're stored as .bmml attachments on the issue. Make sure your migration plan brings the attachments across. On Jira Cloud, open the Balsamiq panel on one of those issues (if it isn't showing, choose Apps under the issue name, then Balsamiq, or show it on every issue). If the issue has no .bmpr attachment yet, the panel says it found wireframe files in the old format: click Migrate to Balsamiq Wireframes for Jira Cloud to convert them into one Balsamiq project, a .bmpr attachment. The migration attaches a backup of the old wireframe files, earlier versions included, named after the issue (for example PROJ-123-Backup.zip), and removes the old .bmml files and their PNG previews from the issue. Do this on each issue that has legacy wireframes.
Of course, if you run into any questions or issues during your migration (including BMML to BMPR conversion), please don't hesitate to reach out to our support team.
What will be different?
Balsamiq Wireframes for Jira has strong feature parity between Data Center and Cloud. The core wireframing experience (including the editor, auto save, and data residency) works the same across both platforms. The Cloud version introduces additional capabilities such as AI features, real-time collaboration out of the box, and image linking.
| Feature | Data Center | Cloud | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Editor | Full wireframing editor available on both platforms. | ||
| Auto save | Wireframes are automatically saved on both platforms. | ||
| Real-time collaboration | (with configuration) |
(out of the box) |
Both platforms support real-time collaboration. On Data Center, additional configuration is required. On Cloud, it works out of the box. |
| Data residency | (at rest) |
Data residency is supported on both platforms. | |
| AI | AI features are available exclusively on the Cloud version. | ||
| Image link | Image linking is available exclusively on the Cloud version. |
All other features and functionality work the same in both versions of the app.