We've come across a number of issues with our Azure DevOps projects and are trying to surface relevant information to the management team with queries and dashboards on projects. Mainly it's just been counting the number of results for particular queries, e.g. when a status hasn't changed in 30 days, number of blocked items, total items in current sprint etc.
What we've been asked for though is to be able to rollup the original estimate total for all work items, and also roll up the completed work as another value. The queries and other things I've seen only seem to be able to count, rather than sum up, but some of the widgets I've seen do appear to sum things for graphs (but I'm just looking for the values).
Can anyone suggest anything?
I imagine that you have two different options here. The first being is that you could leverage the new roll-up columns and aggregate some of this information on the backlog view. Some of this makes assumptions about how you are grouping and the hierarchy of your work items.
Add a rollup column
In the Column options dialog, choose Add a rollup column, select From quick list, and then choose from one of the options listed.
Choose from the menu provided.
Progress bar displays progress bars based on the percentage of associated descendant work items which have been completed or closed.
Total number displays the sum of descendant items or the associated fields of descendant items. Totals provide a measure of the
size of a Feature or Epic based on the number of its child items. For
example, Count of Tasks shows the sum of all tasks that are linked
to parent items. The active or closed state is ignored. Rollup column
menu
Remaining Work of Tasks shows the sum of Remaining Work of tasks that are linked to the parent item.
If you wanted to instead see the summarized details on a dashboard, I'd recommend downloading the Query Tile PRO marketplace extension. Let's say you had a query already defined:
The options support sums based on query fields:
And so you have the tile with the summation value you are wanting. Just replace with other fields that you might need.
Related
On the Boards section of Azure DevOps, there's a nice filter bar. It contains filters for:
Type
Assigned to
Tags
Iteration
Area
Parent work item
As far as I can see, there's no way to use the section outlined in yellow to filter for work items (for example) created within the last seven days, or due within the next 14 days.
Things I've tried:
Creating a query and viewing results as a board (can't see an option to do that)
Finding a way to script work items into iterations based on date, and then filtering the board based on iteration
Is there a way to do this? It's specifically a board I'd like, as opposed to a Backlog-style list.
Just change the board's settings, Is this what you want?
I'm looking to create a query that shows all of the stories that were added to the sprint during our sprint planning meeting. This meeting always takes place on day 1 of the sprint.
Naturally, some stories may be removed mid-sprint but I'd still like to see what was originally planned.
Equally, some stories may be added mid-sprint and I wouldn't want to include those.
I noticed that the built-in Velocity widget has a 'planned' bar, but I'm not entirely sure how that's calculated.
For this issue ,deleted work items cannot be displayed with other work items in queries. If you want to query the stories created by a certain period of time, you can do it in two steps.
First you can query the stories created in the initial time period by the following conditions.
Then you can add the Created Date and Iteration Path column in Recycle Bin to find the stories deleted in this time period.
If your stories are permanently deleted(Remove from Recycle Bin), then you will really cannot query them.
When, in Azure Devops, opening the Boards > Backlog page there is no possibility to have an overview of all work items accross all of the teams.
You see "All backlogs", but they are divided into the teams.
I want to see an overview of all work items for all these teams.
Is this possible?
You can just create a simple query:
Then you can format it as a flat list or tree.
But keep in mind that the limit for query results is 20000 items.
I want to see an overview of all work items for all these teams.
You can't do that using any of the regular azure boards (kanban board and sprint board).
The only way (well, the only way known to me) to do that is with Queries (Boards -> Queries). To see work items across projects, remember to check the Query across projects checkbox.
At your disposal you have myriads of fields that you can use to filter your results as well. Use them to fine tune your query result if you want. Last but not least, use Column options to specify which columns to show in your result. Since you want work items across projects, you may want to be able to see which project an item belongs to without opening the item. To do that, include the column Area path from Column options dialog. I use the following columns, and sort by ID descending.
Finally save the query.
Now go to Dashboard, click the Edit button, and add the Query Results widget. Configure that widget to use the query you just created. Note that by default, the column Area Path is not included in the Selected columns list on the right, but you have to include it yourself from the Available columns list on the left. Move columns up/down as you see fit.
Click Done editing when you are done. Through that widget you can edit the work items by clicking on the Title of each work item, which will open the item in a modal. You cannot reorder items (I suppose to set priority) on this widget itself, but hey, setting priority is just a few clicks away, so not a big deal. If you like, you can sort the query result using Priority, and after updating priority you should click Refresh to see the updated result.
Hope that helps!
I have a number of teams in the Azure DevOps (Visual Studio Online) tracking a different type of work item.
Currently i have created 3 different backlogs for 3 different teams.
There is 2 default backlogs 'Epics' and 'Features', hence total of 5 backlogs.
I'm trying to added a 4th team and now trying to add a backlog for that team.
But i'm getting the message "You have reached the maximum number of backlog levels".
I also learnt that maximum number of allowed Portfolio backlog levels defined for a process is 5.
I also tried to edit the default backlog, which would not let me de-select the work item selected in it, so i could rename it and add the new work item it needs to track.
So is there any other way i could achieve that or to increase the number of portfolio backlog levels.
By default projects, your hierarchy is shown as below:
If you need more than two portfolio backlogs, you can add up to two more for a total of five backlog levels. (limits mentioned here. Portfolio backlog levels defined for a process 5)
This will increase the totally level to 7 (3 customized+ Epic+Feature+PBI+Task)
You can add them by customizing your process, adding new work item types, and then configuring your backlogs and boards.
You can also add or modify the fields defined for a work item type (WIT) or add a custom WIT.
After this it could be:
For details, see Customize an inheritance process and Customize your backlogs or boards (Inheritance process).
However, this is backlog level not designed for multiple teams.
Your team's product backlog lists only those items whose area path matches those assigned to your team.
For details, see Define area paths and assign to a team.
Then you could simply switch backlog for different teams here:
I think you may be going about this the wrong way with respect to Azure DevOps.
You should look into having an Area Path for each Team. See here. For instance in my company we have two Teams say; Alpha and Omega and we've set up two Area Paths as Company\Alpha and Company\Omega. You can then manage each teams backlogs, iterations, work items etc. separately. See here also. We use the same set of iterations across all teams and when we move work items between teams we change the Area Path of the work items.
I'm been using FM for the first time and have a need to use Get Summary on a financial information table. This generates various summaries of different income by customer, year and type. The layout generated from this table is good. The use of Get Summary allows me to do math with the various results, whereas sub summary totals by income type (as far as I know) cannot be added and divided by each other.
The problem I'm facing is that I wish now to create a layout based on customers and include some of the Get Summary detail from the financial table. Because my new layout is based on customers, I understand I cannot use Get Summary from financial as either a related field or in a portal.
The end game is simply to scroll through customer records, one after the other, and have key financial information show on their 'home' screen if you will, for years and type.
Any help gratefully appreciated. Thanks
I understand I cannot use Get Summary from financial as either a
related field or in a portal.
No, that's not quite correct. The GetSummary() function returns the sub-summary value by breakfield - if records are sorted by breakfield. Thus if the portal (or the underlying relationship) sorts the related records by type, you will see sub-summary values in the portal. However, you won't be able to see only sub-summary values, since a portal has no sub-summary parts.
There are other ways to show summarized related data. If you don't have (and don't expect to have) a large amount of records, considering filtering a (one-row) portal to show only a specific type of related records, then place the summary field inside it. Of course, this assumes the types are known in advance and unchanging.