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Install Kimai and import your existing timesheet data from the ancient Kimai 1

Migration from Kimai v1

Kimai 1.14 2.0.24 (latest version)

Table of contents

This documentation covers the necessary steps to migrate from Kimai 1 to Kimai 2.

Read the version documentation before, to understand if you need this migration guide.

Introduction

Before starting with the migration, please read the following FAQs:

  • You need to install the importer plugin (which ships the command for migrating the data)
  • Data from the existing v1 installation is only read and will never be changed
  • Data can only be imported from a Kimai installation with at least v1.0.1 and database revision 1388 (check your configuration table)
  • User-specific rates are not yet supported in Kimai 2, but
    • fixed-rates and hourly-rates for projects and activities are imported
    • fixed-rates and hourly-rates and total rate for timesheet entries are imported
  • Customers in Kimai 2
    • are only used for recording, they cannot login and no user accounts will be created for them
    • have a country code, which can be set during import or edited afterwards (Kimai v1 didn’t know about country)
    • have a currency code, which can be set during import or edited afterwards (Kimai v1 only knows one global currency)
  • You have to supply a default password, which will be used for every imported user(!)
    • due to security issues we cannot import the original passwords
    • let your users reset it afterwards with the Password reset function
  • The import will fail, if a user from v1 has either an empty email, or the same email is used for multiple users. But you can automatically fix that by using the --fix-email option
  • Data which was deleted in Kimai v1 (user, customer, projects, activities) will be imported and set to invisible
    • if you don’t want that, you have to delete all entries that have the value 1 in the trash column before importing
  • Groups import
    • The import will skip groups that have no members.
    • The import will always assign a teamlead to the project. If none of the users in Kimai v1 was assigned as the teamlead, the first member of the group is assigned as teamlead during import.
    • The groups that were trashed in Kimai v1 are not imported into Kimai 2 as hidden/trashed teams are not supported.

Install Kimai

Please read the installation docs first and execute the installation. You can install it on the same server, but you have to meet the server requirements (see downloads page).

The other option is to dump the old database and import it in the new server, the import does not need a running Kimai installation, but only the data!

After Kimai 2 runs properly, the actual migration takes place, by importing the data from your Kimai 1 database into Kimai 2. You have to have SSH access to your server, as you will use a command shipped with Kimai 2, which will pull the data into the new database (configured in your .env file).

The database does not have to be on the same server, and the database user (for the Kimai 1 tables) needs only read access.

Database import

See the help for the import command and all its options and arguments by executing:

bin/console kimai:import:v1 --help

A full command could look like this:

bin/console kimai:import:v1 --global --timezone="timezone" --language="language" --country="DE" --currency="EUR" --prefix="kimai1_" "mysql://user:password@127.0.0.1:3306/database?charset=utf8" "password"

All arguments (eg. country, currency, timezone and language) are optional and will be set to sensitive defaults if not provided. Most flags are used for imported customers and users, becuase they were optional or not existing in Kimai 1.

It is recommended to test the import in a fresh database. You can test your import as often as you like and fix possible problems in your installation. A sample command could look like that:

bin/console doctrine:schema:drop --full-database --force && \
bin/console kimai:install -n && \
bin/console kimai:import:v1 --global --timezone="Europe/Zurich" --country="CH" --language="ch" --currency="CHF" "mysql://kimai:test@127.0.0.1:3306/kimai?charset=latin1" "NEW-PASSWORD-1234"

That will drop all tables (including ones that are not created by Kimai) in the configured database and re-create it, before importing the data from the mysql database at 127.0.0.1 on port 3306 authenticating the user kimai with the password test for import. The connection will use the charset latin1 and the default table prefix kimai_ for reading data. Imported users can login with the password test123 and all customer will have the country CH and the currency CHF assigned.

Problems and solution

Kimai 1 was written a long time ago, when MySQL was lacking proper UTF8 support and foreign keys. While migrating dozens of customers installations I stumbled upon some recurring problems, that can be solved with some SQL commands.

You can either fix the problems manually as described below, or you let the importer handle all these problems by using the arguments --fix-email=example.com, --fix-utf8 and --fix-timesheet. The argument --skip-error-rates is also interesting.

If you want to work on these issues manually (for best results) you find infos and tips below.

Broken character

Many Kimai 1 installations have broken special character (like german umlauts or other language specific non-ascii characters) in the database.

This problem does not show up in the frontend of Kimai 1, as the database connection is using a different collation as the database, which leads to an implicit encoding change. But you can see these problems, when you query the database directly (eg. with a tool like phpMyAdmin).

You can find these broken entries (mainly timesheet descriptions) with SQL statements like these (in the Kimai 1 database):

SELECT * FROM `kimai_timeSheet` WHERE comment like "%ä%";
SELECT * FROM `kimai_timeSheet` WHERE comment like "%Ä%";
SELECT * FROM `kimai_timeSheet` WHERE comment like "%ü%";
SELECT * FROM `kimai_timeSheet` WHERE comment like "%Ü%";
SELECT * FROM `kimai_timeSheet` WHERE comment like "%ö%";
SELECT * FROM `kimai_timeSheet` WHERE comment like "%Ö%";
SELECT * FROM `kimai_timeSheet` WHERE comment like "%ß%";

Changing them is can be done with SQL queries like these:

UPDATE `kimai_timeSheet` SET comment = REPLACE(comment, "ä", "ä") WHERE comment like "%ä%";
UPDATE `kimai_timeSheet` SET comment = REPLACE(comment, "Ä", "Ä") WHERE comment like "%Ä%";
UPDATE `kimai_timeSheet` SET comment = REPLACE(comment, "ü", "ü") WHERE comment like "%ü%";
UPDATE `kimai_timeSheet` SET comment = REPLACE(comment, "Ãœ", "Ü") WHERE comment like "%Ãœ%";
UPDATE `kimai_timeSheet` SET comment = REPLACE(comment, "ö", "ö") WHERE comment like "%ö%";
UPDATE `kimai_timeSheet` SET comment = REPLACE(comment, "Ö", "Ö") WHERE comment like "%Ö%";
UPDATE `kimai_timeSheet` SET comment = REPLACE(comment, "ß", "ß") WHERE comment like "%ß%";

UPDATE `kimai_timeSheet` SET description = REPLACE(description, "ä", "ä") WHERE description like "%ä%";
UPDATE `kimai_timeSheet` SET description = REPLACE(description, "Ä", "Ä") WHERE description like "%Ä%";
UPDATE `kimai_timeSheet` SET description = REPLACE(description, "ü", "ü") WHERE description like "%ü%";
UPDATE `kimai_timeSheet` SET description = REPLACE(description, "Ãœ", "Ü") WHERE description like "%Ãœ%";
UPDATE `kimai_timeSheet` SET description = REPLACE(description, "ö", "ö") WHERE description like "%ö%";
UPDATE `kimai_timeSheet` SET description = REPLACE(description, "Ö", "Ö") WHERE description like "%Ö%";
UPDATE `kimai_timeSheet` SET description = REPLACE(description, "ß", "ß") WHERE description like "%ß%";

UPDATE `kimai_users` SET name = REPLACE(name, "ä", "ä") WHERE name like "%ä%";
UPDATE `kimai_users` SET name = REPLACE(name, "Ä", "Ä") WHERE name like "%Ä%";
UPDATE `kimai_users` SET name = REPLACE(name, "ü", "ü") WHERE name like "%ü%";
UPDATE `kimai_users` SET name = REPLACE(name, "Ãœ", "Ü") WHERE name like "%Ãœ%";
UPDATE `kimai_users` SET name = REPLACE(name, "ö", "ö") WHERE name like "%ö%";
UPDATE `kimai_users` SET name = REPLACE(name, "Ö", "Ö") WHERE name like "%Ö%";
UPDATE `kimai_users` SET name = REPLACE(name, "ß", "ß") WHERE name like "%ß%";

UPDATE `kimai_activities` SET name = REPLACE(name, "ä", "ä") WHERE name like "%ä%";
UPDATE `kimai_activities` SET name = REPLACE(name, "Ä", "Ä") WHERE name like "%Ä%";
UPDATE `kimai_activities` SET name = REPLACE(name, "ü", "ü") WHERE name like "%ü%";
UPDATE `kimai_activities` SET name = REPLACE(name, "Ãœ", "Ü") WHERE name like "%Ãœ%";
UPDATE `kimai_activities` SET name = REPLACE(name, "ö", "ö") WHERE name like "%ö%";
UPDATE `kimai_activities` SET name = REPLACE(name, "Ö", "Ö") WHERE name like "%Ö%";
UPDATE `kimai_activities` SET name = REPLACE(name, "ß", "ß") WHERE name like "%ß%";

UPDATE `kimai_projects` SET name = REPLACE(name, "ä", "ä") WHERE name like "%ä%";
UPDATE `kimai_projects` SET name = REPLACE(name, "Ä", "Ä") WHERE name like "%Ä%";
UPDATE `kimai_projects` SET name = REPLACE(name, "ü", "ü") WHERE name like "%ü%";
UPDATE `kimai_projects` SET name = REPLACE(name, "Ãœ", "Ü") WHERE name like "%Ãœ%";
UPDATE `kimai_projects` SET name = REPLACE(name, "ö", "ö") WHERE name like "%ö%";
UPDATE `kimai_projects` SET name = REPLACE(name, "Ö", "Ö") WHERE name like "%Ö%";
UPDATE `kimai_projects` SET name = REPLACE(name, "ß", "ß") WHERE name like "%ß%";

UPDATE `kimai_projects` SET comment = REPLACE(comment, "ä", "ä") WHERE comment like "%ä%";
UPDATE `kimai_projects` SET comment = REPLACE(comment, "Ä", "Ä") WHERE comment like "%Ä%";
UPDATE `kimai_projects` SET comment = REPLACE(comment, "ü", "ü") WHERE comment like "%ü%";
UPDATE `kimai_projects` SET comment = REPLACE(comment, "Ãœ", "Ü") WHERE comment like "%Ãœ%";
UPDATE `kimai_projects` SET comment = REPLACE(comment, "ö", "ö") WHERE comment like "%ö%";
UPDATE `kimai_projects` SET comment = REPLACE(comment, "Ö", "Ö") WHERE comment like "%Ö%";
UPDATE `kimai_projects` SET comment = REPLACE(comment, "ß", "ß") WHERE comment like "%ß%";

UPDATE `kimai_customers` SET name = REPLACE(name, "ä", "ä") WHERE name like "%ä%";
UPDATE `kimai_customers` SET name = REPLACE(name, "Ä", "Ä") WHERE name like "%Ä%";
UPDATE `kimai_customers` SET name = REPLACE(name, "ü", "ü") WHERE name like "%ü%";
UPDATE `kimai_customers` SET name = REPLACE(name, "Ãœ", "Ü") WHERE name like "%Ãœ%";
UPDATE `kimai_customers` SET name = REPLACE(name, "ö", "ö") WHERE name like "%ö%";
UPDATE `kimai_customers` SET name = REPLACE(name, "Ö", "Ö") WHERE name like "%Ö%";
UPDATE `kimai_customers` SET name = REPLACE(name, "ß", "ß") WHERE name like "%ß%";

UPDATE `kimai_expenses` SET designation = REPLACE(designation, "ä", "ä") WHERE designation like "%ä%";
UPDATE `kimai_expenses` SET designation = REPLACE(designation, "Ä", "Ä") WHERE designation like "%Ä%";
UPDATE `kimai_expenses` SET designation = REPLACE(designation, "ü", "ü") WHERE designation like "%ü%";
UPDATE `kimai_expenses` SET designation = REPLACE(designation, "Ãœ", "Ü") WHERE designation like "%Ãœ%";
UPDATE `kimai_expenses` SET designation = REPLACE(designation, "ö", "ö") WHERE designation like "%ö%";
UPDATE `kimai_expenses` SET designation = REPLACE(designation, "Ö", "Ö") WHERE designation like "%Ö%";
UPDATE `kimai_expenses` SET designation = REPLACE(designation, "ß", "ß") WHERE designation like "%ß%";

UPDATE `kimai_expenses` SET comment = REPLACE(comment, "ä", "ä") WHERE comment like "%ä%";
UPDATE `kimai_expenses` SET comment = REPLACE(comment, "Ä", "Ä") WHERE comment like "%Ä%";
UPDATE `kimai_expenses` SET comment = REPLACE(comment, "ü", "ü") WHERE comment like "%ü%";
UPDATE `kimai_expenses` SET comment = REPLACE(comment, "Ãœ", "Ü") WHERE comment like "%Ãœ%";
UPDATE `kimai_expenses` SET comment = REPLACE(comment, "ö", "ö") WHERE comment like "%ö%";
UPDATE `kimai_expenses` SET comment = REPLACE(comment, "Ö", "Ö") WHERE comment like "%Ö%";
UPDATE `kimai_expenses` SET comment = REPLACE(comment, "ß", "ß") WHERE comment like "%ß%";

User accounts without email

Find and update all users, that have no email address:

SELECT * FROM `kimai_users` WHERE mail = '' OR mail IS NULL;
UPDATE `kimai_users` SET mail = concat(name, '@example.com') WHERE mail = '' OR mail IS NULL;

Reset password for testing

Update an account with a new password in your Kimai 1 database:

UPDATE `kimai_users` SET password = md5(concat('your-salt', 'new-password', 'your-salt')) WHERE userID = XYZ;