Migrating from Smartsheet to Jira
The main reason teams move from Smartsheet to Jira is roadmapping. Jira's approach — industry standard for software development teams — most pms will encounter jira in their career — suits startup and scaleup teams that have outgrown Smartsheet's model. Here's how to migrate without losing historical context.
At a Glance
- Spreadsheet-familiar interface makes adoption easy for teams transitioning from Excel — minimal training needed for basic use
- Extremely powerful Gantt chart and dependency tracking capabilities, ideal for traditional project management and waterfall methodologies
- Robust automation engine with conditional logic, approval workflows, and automated notifications that scale across the organization
- Industry standard for software development teams — most PMs will encounter Jira in their career
- Deepest configurability of any project management tool with custom fields, workflows, and screens
- 3,000+ marketplace integrations covering virtually every tool in the product stack
You gain with Jira
- +roadmapping
- +sprint planning
- +backlog management
- +time tracking
You leave behind
- −Gantt charts
Migration Steps
Audit and export your current workspace
Before touching Jira, document what lives in Smartsheet: projects and tasks, custom fields, automations, integrations, and team permissions. Export a full CSV backup — most tools support this from Settings → Export. Pay particular attention to any custom fields and workflow automations that your team relies on daily.
Set up your Jira workspace
Create your Jira workspace and replicate your project structure using epics, stories, and sprints. Jira starts at $7.91/user/mo/user/mo with a free tier available — $1.0899999999999999/user/mo less than your current Smartsheet spend. Run with a single pilot team before migrating everyone.
Map your workflow equivalents
Find the closest Jira equivalent for each Smartsheet feature your team relies on. projects and tasks in Smartsheet maps to epics, stories, and sprints in Jira. Jira supports custom fields — recreate your Smartsheet field schema here first. Prioritise the critical path: task creation, status tracking, and assignment.
Import your data
Jira supports CSV import for tasks and projects and has 20+ native integrations. After importing, rebuild your key automations — Jira's automation engine can replicate most rules you had in Smartsheet. Start with your most active project rather than importing everything at once.
Onboard your team
Run a 30-minute walkthrough covering the daily workflow: how to create epics, stories, and sprints, update status, and find your board. Jira has a steeper learning curve. Budget 2–3 weeks for full adoption and schedule follow-up sessions after week one.
Run Smartsheet in parallel for two weeks
Keep Smartsheet read-only while your team works primarily in Jira. This reduces risk and lets people reference historical context — old decisions, archived tickets, past sprint data — without slowing the migration. After two weeks with no new work going into Smartsheet, archive the workspace and make Jira the official home.
Ready to switch?
Read the full Jira review for pricing, integrations, and team fit details.