Jira Cloud apps are built on one of two Atlassian frameworks: the older Connect, or Forge. Atlassian is retiring Connect, and planning poker apps are among the ones still caught on the wrong side of the date.
Nothing dramatic happens to your team on the first of February. That is exactly why it is easy to leave too late: the app keeps opening, until one day a panel doesn't load in the middle of refinement, and there is nobody left to fix it.
What Atlassian has announced
| When | What it means |
|---|---|
| September 2025 | The Marketplace stopped accepting new Connect apps. |
| March 2026 | Apps built on Connect can no longer receive updates. A Connect app you have installed today is, in practice, frozen. |
| 31 January 2027 | Connect reaches end of support. Atlassian will only address critical security issues, and has said Connect apps "will not continue on in a steady state": breakages will become more frequent and the experience will degrade. |
Atlassian has not said that Connect apps will be switched off on that date. The risk is slower and less visible: Jira keeps changing, and an app that can no longer be updated stops keeping up with it.
Is your estimation app affected?
Jira's list of installed apps doesn't make it obvious which framework each one uses, so it takes a minute of checking:
- Look at the app's version history on the Marketplace. Connect apps haven't been able to publish updates since March 2026, so a cloud version released after that means the app is no longer on Connect. If the latest release is older, the app may be on Connect, or simply on Forge and quiet. The next two checks tell you which.
- Look for the "Runs on Atlassian" badge on the listing. Only Forge apps can carry it. Not having it doesn't prove an app is on Connect, but having it proves it isn't.
- Ask the vendor. One sentence is enough: "Is your Jira Cloud app on Forge, and if not, what is your plan for 31 January 2027?" A vendor that is migrating will have an answer and usually a date. Silence is an answer too.
A vendor migrating to Forge is good news for you. When the same vendor moves its own app, your data and settings normally come along and there is nothing to do. The rest of this guide is for the case where that isn't happening.
What you keep and what you lose if you switch
This is the reassuring part. In most planning poker apps, the estimate that matters isn't stored in the app at all.
| Data | Where it usually lives | When the old app goes |
|---|---|---|
| The agreed estimate | A Jira field: Story Points, Story point estimate or Original estimate | Stays. It is Jira data, and your board, velocity and reports keep working. |
| Individual votes and who voted what | The app's own storage | Goes with the app. |
| Session history and lists | The app's own storage | Goes with the app. |
| Custom card decks and settings | The app's own storage | Re-created in the new tool. Write them down first. |
Check the first row rather than assume it: open three or four estimated issues and confirm the number is in the field itself, not only inside the app's panel. If it is only in the panel, export it before you do anything else.
Switching without losing a sprint
- Write down what the old app does for you. Which projects use it, which card scale each team uses, who is allowed to save an estimate, and whether teams vote asynchronously, live, or both.
- Find out which field each board estimates in. Team-managed and company-managed projects use different story point fields, and a tool that writes to the wrong one produces estimates the board never shows. How to check which field your board uses.
- Install the replacement next to the old one. Two estimation apps can coexist. Estimate one sprint's refinement with the new one while the old one is still there as a fallback.
- Test the save on one issue per project type. Save an estimate, then look at the card on the board. If the board shows it, the tool is writing to the right field.
- Then remove the old app, after exporting anything from the second table you want to keep.
Do it in a quiet sprint, and before the end of January rather than after it. A migration you plan takes an afternoon; one forced on you takes a refinement session.
What to ask of a replacement
- Is it on Forge? There is no reason to move from one Connect app to another.
- Does it detect the field your board uses, and confirm the save by reading the value back from Jira?
- Are votes hidden until someone reveals them, for everyone, administrators included?
- Can people vote from the issue on their own time, as well as in a live session?
- Does saving a batch of estimates email every watcher? Thirty notifications after refinement is how a tool gets uninstalled.
- Where does your data go? A "Runs on Atlassian" app keeps it inside your Atlassian instance; others run on the vendor's servers. Which one your security review accepts is worth knowing before you install.
Estimation for Jira, our app, is built on Forge and runs entirely on Atlassian infrastructure. Votes are cast from the issue or in a live session and stay hidden until someone reveals them, and the agreed estimate is written to the field your board actually uses, then read back to confirm it. It is free for up to ten users, and currently in Atlassian Marketplace review.