Guides for Jira teams

Guide · Connect end of support

Moving off a Connect Gantt app before January 2027

Atlassian is retiring Connect, the older way apps were built for Jira Cloud. If your team plans in a Connect Gantt app, here is what that means, what you keep, and a calm way to switch.

What is changing

  • Connect end of support is 31 January 2027. After that date Atlassian no longer supports Connect apps, and they may stop working as the platform changes.
  • Connect apps can no longer ship updates through the Marketplace since spring 2026, so bugs and security issues in them stay unfixed.
  • Jira has started telling admins, and then users, when an installed app "might stop working soon". That notice is the easiest way to see whether your Gantt app is affected.

Apps built on Forge, Atlassian's current platform, are not affected.

What your plan is made of

Before choosing a replacement, find out where your current app keeps each part of the plan. Open a planned issue in Jira and look:

  • Dates: most Gantt apps use Jira fields, typically Start date (or a custom "Start") and Due date. If you see the dates on the issue, they stay in Jira whatever happens to the app.
  • Dependencies: if the issue shows links such as blocks / is blocked by (or a custom link type), they are Jira issue links and stay too. If the dependencies only exist inside the app's chart, they live in the app's storage.
  • Baselines, saved views, lag values, resource settings: almost always kept by the app itself. Export or screenshot what you need before uninstalling.

Data in Jira moves with you

Anything stored in Jira fields and issue links is readable by any other app. That is most of a plan, and it is why switching is usually quicker than teams expect.

A calm way to switch

  1. Check where your data lives

    As above: dates in fields, dependencies as links, the rest in the app.

  2. Install the new app next to the old one

    Both can run side by side; nothing changes in your issues until someone moves a bar.

  3. Point it at the same fields and link types

    So the same bars and arrows appear. Compare one project in both charts.

  4. Bring over what only the old app knew

    If it exports Microsoft Project XML, a replacement that imports MS Project files can turn those dependencies into Jira links.

  5. Save a baseline on day one

    Old baselines usually cannot be carried over; a fresh one gives you a reference from the switch onwards.

  6. Recreate the views the team uses

    For example one per release, and share them.

  7. Uninstall the old app

    Once the team works in the new one. Dates and links stay in Jira.

Choosing a replacement

  • Built on Forge (look for "Runs on Atlassian" or ask the vendor), so you don't face the same move again.
  • Uses Jira fields and links rather than its own copy of your plan, so your data stays portable.
  • Works as the user, so Jira permissions and history stay meaningful.
  • Handles your size: open your biggest project during the trial and scroll it.

YTI Gantt for Jira (made by us, YTI Digital) is one option: a Forge app that reads your existing date fields and issue links, with dependencies and lag, auto-scheduling, critical path, baselines, saved views, a plan health score, workload levelling and import from MS Project (also for dependencies your old app kept to itself). Its switching guide walks through the settings, and we help with the mapping at support@yti.digital. For the bigger picture, see Gantt chart options in Jira Cloud.