TFS - Integration platform. Migrating system.created and changed date to custom fields

Question

We are trying to import work items from TFS 2010 to 2012. we defined 2 custom fields called "Legacy Created Date" and "Legacy Changed Date" in our fields for all the work item types. The reason why we had to create these 2 fields for created date and changed date is because after the migration, the created date and changed date are changed to the migration time and the old created/changed dates are lost. We also included these 2 fields in the migration xml like this:

The above 2 statements are included for all work item types. No matter what we tried, these 2 fields are coming in empty post-migration.

We confirmed that the 2 custom fileds are available in the work item type templates [by using TFS power tools and opening the WIT from server]

Any help pls? Thx much!

***UPDATE - ENTIRE MAPPING XML****

<SettingXml>
<WITSessionCustomSetting>
  <Settings />
  <WorkItemTypes>
    <WorkItemType LeftWorkItemTypeName="User Story" RightWorkItemTypeName="Product Backlog Item" fieldMap="UserStoryToProductBacklogItemFieldMap" />
  </WorkItemTypes>
  <FieldMaps>
    <FieldMap name="UserStoryToProductBacklogItemFieldMap">
      <MappedFields>
        <MappedField MapFromSide="Left" LeftName="System.CreatedDate" RightName="Contoso.Field.LegacyCreatedDate" />
        <MappedField MapFromSide="Left" LeftName="System.ChangedDate" RightName="Contoso.Field.LegacyChangedDate" />
        <MappedField MapFromSide="Left" LeftName="System.AreaPath" RightName="System.AreaPath" />
        <MappedField MapFromSide="Left" LeftName="System.AssignedTo" RightName="System.AssignedTo" />
        <MappedField MapFromSide="Left" LeftName="System.AttachedFileCount" RightName="System.AttachedFileCount" />
        <MappedField MapFromSide="Left" LeftName="System.AuthorizedAs" RightName="System.AuthorizedAs" />
        <MappedField MapFromSide="Left" LeftName="System.ChangedBy" RightName="System.ChangedBy" />
        <MappedField MapFromSide="Left" LeftName="Microsoft.VSTS.Common.ClosedDate" RightName="Microsoft.VSTS.Common.ClosedDate" />
        <MappedField MapFromSide="Left" LeftName="Contoso.Field.Contact" RightName="Contoso.Field.Contact" />
        <MappedField MapFromSide="Left" LeftName="System.CreatedBy" RightName="System.CreatedBy" />
        <MappedField MapFromSide="Left" LeftName="Contoso.Field.CustomerName" RightName="Contoso.Field.CustomerName" />
        <MappedField MapFromSide="Left" LeftName="System.Description" RightName="System.Description" />
        <MappedField MapFromSide="Left" LeftName="Contoso.Field.DocSourceUpdateRequired" RightName="Contoso.Field.DocSourceUpdateRequired" />
        <MappedField MapFromSide="Left" LeftName="System.ExternalLinkCount" RightName="System.ExternalLinkCount" />
        <MappedField MapFromSide="Left" LeftName="System.History" RightName="System.History" />
        <MappedField MapFromSide="Left" LeftName="System.HyperLinkCount" RightName="System.HyperLinkCount" />
        <MappedField MapFromSide="Left" LeftName="Microsoft.VSTS.Build.IntegrationBuild" RightName="Microsoft.VSTS.Build.IntegrationBuild" />
        <MappedField MapFromSide="Left" LeftName="Contoso.Field.InternalProduct" RightName="Contoso.Field.InternalProduct" />
        <MappedField MapFromSide="Left" LeftName="System.IterationId" RightName="System.IterationId" />
        <MappedField MapFromSide="Left" LeftName="System.IterationPath" RightName="System.IterationPath" />
        <MappedField MapFromSide="Left" LeftName="System.NodeName" RightName="System.NodeName" />
        <MappedField MapFromSide="Left" LeftName="System.Reason" RightName="System.Reason" />
        <MappedField MapFromSide="Left" LeftName="Contoso.Field.Regulatory" RightName="Contoso.Field.Regulatory" />
        <MappedField MapFromSide="Left" LeftName="System.RelatedLinkCount" RightName="System.RelatedLinkCount" />
        <MappedField MapFromSide="Left" LeftName="Contoso.Field.ReleaseNoteRequired" RightName="Contoso.Field.ReleaseNoteRequired" />
        <MappedField MapFromSide="Left" LeftName="Contoso.Field.ResolutionDetails" RightName="Contoso.Field.ResolutionDetails" />
        <MappedField MapFromSide="Left" LeftName="System.Rev" RightName="System.Rev" />
        <MappedField MapFromSide="Left" LeftName="System.RevisedDate" RightName="System.RevisedDate" />
        <MappedField MapFromSide="Left" LeftName="Contoso.Field.SFDCCaseID" RightName="Contoso.Field.SFDCCaseID" />
        <MappedField MapFromSide="Left" LeftName="Contoso.Field.SFDCCaseNumber" RightName="Contoso.Field.SFDCCaseNumber" />
        <MappedField MapFromSide="Left" LeftName="Contoso.Field.SFDCOrganizationID" RightName="Contoso.Field.SFDCOrganizationID" />
        <MappedField MapFromSide="Left" LeftName="Contoso.Field.SFDCSyncResult" RightName="Contoso.Field.SFDCSyncResult" />
        <MappedField MapFromSide="Left" LeftName="System.State" RightName="System.State" valueMap="userstory_ValueMap" />
        <MappedField MapFromSide="Left" LeftName="System.TeamProject" RightName="System.TeamProject" />
        <MappedField MapFromSide="Left" LeftName="System.Title" RightName="System.Title" />
        <MappedField MapFromSide="Left" LeftName="System.WorkItemType" RightName="System.WorkItemType" />
        <MappedField MapFromSide="Left" LeftName="Microsoft.VSTS.Common.Priority" RightName="Microsoft.VSTS.Common.BacklogPriority" />
        <MappedField MapFromSide="Left" LeftName="Contoso.Field.TestNote" RightName="Microsoft.VSTS.Common.AcceptanceCriteria" />
        <MappedField MapFromSide="Left" LeftName="Microsoft.VSTS.CMMI.Blocked" RightName="Microsoft.VSTS.CMMI.Blocked" />
        <MappedField MapFromSide="Left" LeftName="System.ID" RightName="Contoso.Field.ExternalId" />
      </MappedFields>
    </FieldMap>
  </FieldMaps>
  <ValueMaps>
    <ValueMap name="userstory_ValueMap">
      <Value LeftValue="Unconfirmed" RightValue="New" />
      <Value LeftValue="Need Info" RightValue="New" />
      <Value LeftValue="Info Provided" RightValue="New" />
      <Value LeftValue="Confirmed" RightValue="Approved" />
      <Value LeftValue="Construction" RightValue="Committed" />
      <Value LeftValue="Resolved" RightValue="Committed - Developed" />
      <Value LeftValue="Built" RightValue="Committed - Developed" />
      <Value LeftValue="In Test" RightValue="Committed - Developed" />
      <Value LeftValue="Verified" RightValue="Committed - Tested" />
      <Value LeftValue="Closed" RightValue="Done" />
    </ValueMap>
  </ValueMaps>
</WITSessionCustomSetting>

*****UPDATE - Partial success [not thru integration platform] I gave up on integration platform trying to sync created date and changed date on revisions. I am now focussing my efforts on directly querying the TFS_defaultcollection DB and getting the dates. Here is the sql.. select * from WorkItemswere where id = order by rev This will give all the revisions for a given ID. We can write a post migration script to loop thru all work items and update the "created date" [The CreatedDate column in WorkItemsWere will give that] and the revised date and changed date columns will have all the dates u need. However, the challenge is updating the "changed dates" [I am updating the Created date via the TFS API. Starightforward. Just run console app as a "service account" TFS user, "open" the work item, modify the created date and "save" it]. I am querying the source systems WorkItemsWere table, getting the Changed and Revision dates by each "Rev" and updating the target systems "WorkItemsWere" [It's important that the source and target systems are locked so no updats are happening during this script]. After the script ran, I picked a workitem on a taregt system and checked it's history. All the history disappeared!!.. So, bad idea directly updating the changed/revision dates in DB. However, I found a workaround. If you just update the "revision date" and NOT the "changed date", it does show the history. [without the 'Rev #"]. This is an ok workaround for us. Will keep everyone posted.

Answer 1

I was able to solve it by directly updating the tables WorkItemsWere and WorkItemsLongtext in TFS. Specifically, the columns Revised date and changed date in WorkItemsWere and Changed Date in workitemslongtext. I just wrote a script that loops thru all work items and gets all the revisions from the old TFS instance. Get the revised date/changed dates from WorkItemsWeere table and update the dates in the target system. works like a charm.

Answer 2

After some digging, it looks like the TFS Integration Platform treats these two fields in a special, and by special I mean that they ignore them when the user tries mapping them in the configuration file. Here is a link to a forum post that outlines this specifically: http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/tfsintegration/thread/e310e35b-e1b7-4f60-a2bf-15ad5016e736/. Again, this doesn't mean these values disappear, they should be held in the history comments of the new work items in the target TFS environment (as noted in my comment).