I'm fairly new to the different work items available in Azure Devops Server 2020 (TFS) and wonder if I could get some advice on what to select.
I am the only developer in a project and have direct contact with the stakeholder. When the stakeholder report an issue should I then create an Issue/impediment that describes whats is wrong or needs to be changed. And then create a task or bug that I link to that issue/impediment?
You can use Agile Glossary to get some information.
Issues/Impediments:
A type of work item that helps track unplanned activities. Resolving
an issue or impediment requires more work beyond what was scheduled
based on actual requirements.
Bugs:
A type of work item that records a potential source of dissatisfaction
with the product.
You can use Bugs to report issues from your stakeholders and here you also use two ways:
Use bugs on the requirements level and create tasks under it.
Use bugs on tasks level and link them to affected user story or product backlog item.
Show bugs on backlogs and boards
Or you can use user stories/product backlog items as a record to enhance your product.
Related
There is a roadmap feature in JIRA, through which we can create Epics, user stories and assign start and end date to them itself by simply dragging the horizontal bar in table.
With help of this feature we can perform month-wise/day-wise or quarter-wise planning for any project. Additionally, we can export and share with client too. I require this kind of user friendly feature in Azure DevOps too. I tried integrating a Epics and Features Roadmap Plugin, but its not giving precise results as JIRA Roadmap is giving. Its user interface is very confusing, giving some occasional error message. Plus, it configuration is also very tedious and time-consuming. Can I get better user friendly GUI in Azure DevOps for Roadmap creation?
Please Help. Attached screenshots for reference of both platforms feature. Thanks in advance.
DevOps provides Delivery Plans to review the schedule of stories or features your teams plan to deliver. Delivery Plans show the scheduled work items by sprint (iteration path) of selected teams against a calendar view.
If it doesn't meet your requirement, you could check the existing extensions to see whether there are extensions useful:
https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/search?term=roadmap&target=AzureDevOps&category=All%20categories&sortBy=Relevance
Yes I can see what is currently in the sprint, but how can I tell what was originally planned in a sprint?
I would like to be able to query this for a chart on my dashboard. Additionally, I want to be able to pass this information over to Power Bi via Analytics View.
Usually, we create product backlog to correspond to your project plan, the roadmap for what your team plans to deliver. You create your product backlog by adding Issues (Basic process), User Stories (Agile), Product Backlog Items (Scrum), Requirements (CMMI).
Your backlog consists of a list of work items. You use work items to share information, assign work to team members, track dependencies, organize work, and more.
If you want to track your project plan, you should query your product backlog.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/report/powerbi/create-quick-report?view=azure-devops
On Azure DevOps, I have a set of test cases and every test case has a number of related bugs (from 0 to you better not know :p). The link type here is "Tests".
I would like to sort the test cases by number of related bugs, to make an estimation of the most buggy parts of the software.
I've tried but I only found the option "Number of links" ("Nombre de liens associés" in French).
Thanks in advance.
EDIT: we use Azure DevOps Server, not Azure DevOps Service. Thus, unfortunately I can't follow the steps here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/boards/queries/linking-attachments?view=azure-devops#list-items-based-on-linked-dependents
Sort test cases by number of related bugs on Azure DevOps
For this issue , I am afraid it is currently unachievable in azure devops. Currently, there is no feature of sorting by related work items in azure devops.
Running the following query in the azure devops server, you can get all test cases containing related bugs , but you cannot sort these test cases.
Apart from the negative answer, I think what you want is a good idea! So I post a feature request here in DC forum. Anyone interested in this can vote for it and track it. You could vote that suggestion ticket and share your comment there,The product team would provide the updates if they view it.
You can do that only through customization:
Add a new field like Bugs Count or Active Bugs count. Add and manage fields for an inherited process
Create custom app to fill that field with real count of bugs through REST API. Wiql - Query By Wiql, Work Items - Update
Then you can use a column setting to edit the sort order of your query result.
In Microsoft's VSTS, is there a way to have User Story as a child of Epic in the Agile process template, eg including when performing "mapping", without creating a VSTS custom process template? In the image below in the main content area, hide / remove Feature, and in the "Mapping" panel on the right, have Epics for mapping User Stories.
I'm asking because in my org's agile practice we have epics and user stories but we don't see the need / benefit to the extra layer of Feature WIT.
OOTB Agile process template has Epic > Feature > User Story and when you view Product Backlog (aka user stories) you can map them to Features and when you view Feature portfolio backlog you can map them to Epics, but you can't (that I know of) turn off the Feature WIT so that User Stories can be mapped directly to Epics in the GUI.
Btw, it isn't possible to rename OOTB WITs otherwise I would simply turn off Epic WIT and rename it to "Epic OOTB", and rename Feature WIT to "Epic My Org".
UPDATE: Per Add a portfolio backlog level it is possible to add a portfolio backlog level with a new WIT:
You'll first export your process, add or update definition files, and
then import that process to either update existing team projects or
use it to create a team project.
but I want to remove one. I may try the reverse using this procedure but first I'd like some reassurance that it likely works for removing an OOTB level.
Some of the docs I've consulted include:
Agile process work item types and workflow - Microsoft Docs
Define features and epics - Microsoft Docs
There isn’t such feature in VSTS, also you can’t custom too: Modify the backlog and boards
Why don't you use tools like Jira or Rally to map in your agile practices? It will be immensely beneficial in long run.
Agile, by its very definition, means that you should be flexible. As such, ignoring the User Story as a sub-class of feature can be done. However, I think that if the focus of your delivery has a strong user-component to it, then marrying that up in deliverables will give a better indicator to your product owners.
If you're scrumming it, then you'd generally be working on a feature-task loop anyway, so I wouldn't worry, VSTS seems to cope well with both.
VSTS doesn't really concentrate heavy on Workflows OOTB like JIRA pushes (I've seen some crazy JIRA workflows in my time), although it is quite extensible, I believe the VSTS Team have gone Zen Agile in terms of offering a service that helps teams develop code first and foremost, and consigns the machinations of the upper tier management of software delivery and work tracking second.
See the process guidelines for more info: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/vsts/boards/work-items/guidance/choose-process?view=vsts
I'm currently using Team Services with multiple teams but am having an issue with displaying tasks on the specific team's backlog.
I have created two teams (Portal & Core) with there own area.
I have created a story and have set it to the root area.
To complete this story requires effort by both teams. I have created a task for the Portal team and set it to their area and another task for the Core team and have set it to their area.
If I look at the teams backlog I cannot see the task for them (I have set Show Parents).
Should I be able to split tasks of a story across multiple teams?
Thanks
No, there isn't any way to achieve this directly. But there is an alternative method for this, refer to the steps below for details:
Go to the "Work\Area" settings of the root project and add a new child area for example "TwoTeams".
Go to the "Work\Area" settings of the child projects(Portal & Core) and add "CrossTeam\TwoTeams" area to them.
Assign the user story to "CrossTeam\TwoTeams" area.
Now you will see the User Story and Tasks on the teams backlog like following:
Whether you should be able to is one thing, which is a broader topic. Whether you can is a different question, one with an exact, factual answer: You can't.
A user story is intended to be a discrete unit of work that is completed by a single cross-functional team. If you have multiple teams working on one user story, chances are good that the user story is too large and should be decomposed further.