Azure Devops sprint taskboard - see the epic name of each PBI - azure-devops

Azure Devops allows to see PBIs and their associated tasks on sprint taskboard. But what if I want to see the associated Feature or Epic of each PBI? How about adding a new field to each PBI to see their related Epics?
I want to see the Epic on each card(list view of PBI) not by opening each PBI.

You can add the Parent field.
If you click on the settings icon, you can add the parent field. However, you can only go one level up, there is no "parent's parent" field to use.
e.g. if you use the (Epic -> Feature -> Backlog Items) structure, you can use this to show the Feature. You cannot display the Epic this way, there is no corresponding Field for it.

Related

Azure DevOps - Change PBI state when PBI is added to a sprint / iteration

I want to set up a rule in my custom Azure DevOps process so that when we're doing sprint planning and we're looking at the PBI backlog with the Planning side pane open, when a PBI is dragged to a sprint, the state of the PBI would be set to 'Committed'.
My first thought was to set up a rule on the PBI so that when the Iteration is changed, set the status to Committed. But the iteration field is not available in the rules UI - as far as I can tell, this is because in DevOps rules are converted to SQL and iteration is an incompatible field type (maybe).
It looks like there was a feature request for this, but it's been rejected by the Azure DevOps team.
I can't help thinking that setting / changing the state of a PBI when that PBI is added to an iteration would be a very common use-case.
Does anyone have a workaround or solution for this? Or is it just a case of having to change the state of the PBIs manually as a bulk task?
Iteration path fields is not included in the custom rule field list. And this requirement has been reported as feature request to the azure devops team:
Allow work item rules to set Iteration Path
Does anyone have a workaround or solution for this? Or is it just a case of having to change the state of the PBIs manually as a bulk task?
For a workaround, you can consider using the extension: Work item form one click actions
You can set the rule in the extension for the target work item type in Project Settings -> Extensions -> WIT One Click Actions.
For example: You can set the triggers and actions.
Then you can modify the work item field and click the target rule once.
It will then evaluate the work item and change the state.

Can I configure new user stories to be added to the backlog instead of the current sprint?

We have had several instances where new stories have been added to the backlog and then people are confused because the active sprint has new stories that haven't been refined - from the backlog view, adding a new Story always seems to add it to the current sprint iteration.
It seems a bad approach that new stories are added to a current iteration rather than the main backlog, is there a way to configure this behavior?
You can setup default iteration for your team in Team configuration -> Default Iteration, it will set iteration value for work items created from Boards section and Backlogs section, but not for from Work Items section(because Work Items view is focused on all teams)
You can also setup and use template for it, it will allow you to customize multiple fields including 'Iteration path'
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/boards/backlogs/work-item-template?view=azure-devops&tabs=browser
1.You need to ensure that you are in the current team with the backlog.
2.And you also need to check the default iteration of this specific team in project setting.

Query regarding Backlog Levels in Azure Devops

I'm trying to configure and customize the Azure DevOps tool as per the requirement for my application development team. In the boards setting, I have selected the option "Bugs are managed with Tasks" to get a good view of my sprint items. However, my team reports post production issues as Bugs in the tool and enabling the above mentioned setting doesn't allow me to view these Bugs in the Kanban Boad. Reason is they are not linked with any User Story.
I have been exploring the options in Backlog levels options available in the Processes settings and found that the Backlog level "Stories" is tagged only for User Story.
My query here is can i try linking Bug and Task to the already existing "Stories" backlog level. Azure DevOps does gives option to create a custom backlog level and custom Work item type. I would like to customize the existing functionality to best fit my team. Please let me know if there is a work around.
Query regarding Backlog Levels in Azure Devops
This behavior is by designed and there is no way to fix it at present for the exists Work item type Bug.
Because there is only one requirement backlog and it cannot be removed, but can be renamed and edited:
There is an user voice about this request on the Developer Community.
As workaround, we could create a custom the Work item type and add it to backlog level, for example, I create a custom Work item type BugWithoutTask, then add it portfolio backlog:
Then go to backlog settings and enable new backlog:
Now, we could these BugwithoutTask in the Kanban Boad:
You could check this document for some more deails.
Hope this helps.

Azure Devops WorkItems

I am new to azure devops and devops field. I am exploring myself in azure devops, where learning boards. I I was confused while updating the status of my work item. I was assigned with a task (example: create a login page. Now i went to azure boards and its allowing me to edit the title and priority fields. Those are already set by my higher levels. I only need to add details like time efforts, status). What security is our team missing to achieve this?
Also i need to move the work items from one stage to next stage(Todo to completed) via VS2017. How to achieve that. Now i am currently going to devops portal and drag and drop the workitems to next columns.
If you have permission to edit a work item, you can edit any field on the work item. This is by design. Whether it's a limitation or not is up to you to decide.
You can update the work item state from Visual Studio by linking it to your commit in the team explorer. Refer to the documentation.

VSTS: Group level between feature and work item

I am working as a Product Owner for a development team using scrum, we are using VSTS for our backlog.
So far I have been organizing my backlog using Epics and Features, I am mainly using features.
I use Features both to group work items but also for keeping control of delivering stuff. If I for instance know that I need to deliver a certain functionality a certain day then I create a Feature for that and include the needed work items. I need to do that because I manage many projects simultaneously.
So far, so good.
But now Product Management want to start creating Epics and Features for them to organize work. I can live without the Epics, and it is fine that they create the features and I add work items. But when I start executing I need some way to organize into deliverables.
Any idea how I can do that, basically I need a group like features but in between feature and work item
You can add tags for your and other Epics to distinguish them...
basically I need a group like features but in between feature and work item
Alternatively you can create a new work item type like features. Please see Customize a project using an inherited process for details.
Create an inherited process
Custom the process
Add a new work item type
...
Apply the customized process to your project
UPDATE:
You need to add a new Portfolio backlog level, but in Azure DevOps (VSTS) the new Portfolio backlogs can only be added as the top level, that means the hierarchy should be Deliverable > Epic > Feature > Backlog Item.
So, in this case you can rename them to match your requirements, for example rename Feature to Deliverable, Epic to Feature, Deliverable to Epic...
Please see Customize your backlogs or boards for details.