How do I add an existing work item to a the default board?
I can create work items under the Work Items section and I can also create work items by clicking + New Item in the Boards section.
But how can I add an existing item to that board?
I cannot find a setting, field, option anywhere to do that.
This is an organization Azure DevOps.
Your existing item needs to be "visible" to the board by existing in the appropriate iteration path and area path.
Without breaking out all the organization settings that allow you to detail this stuff, the easy way to know the value you need to use is to create a new item on the board you want, and use the values it gets in iteration path and area path on the existing item.
Illustrations:
Make sure your project has areas and iterations that make sense for you. Typically your project will start out with a root iteration path and three child iteration paths:
Iteration 1
Iteration 2
Iteration 3
Iteration paths are used to handle both backlogs and sprints for teams.
The combination of area path and iteration path allows admins to divide sections of the global backlog among the teams that are doing the work.
Think of the connection like a grid. If the rows are iteration paths, then the areas are the columns that divide that row (or vise versa). Multiple teams can operate on the same row (iteration/backlog), but they will only see the work items that also fall inside their assigned columns (areas).
When you create a team the area can be created for you, or you can assign an area to a team after it is created.
You can also change the backlog iteration for a team.
Now your team has a board and a backlog. Again, for your first team, this is done for you.
You have obviously already created some work items, so you'll need to move them into the right area and iteration to make them show up.
This can also be done in bulk from another team backlog
You can configure the board on what to be displayed.
By default, it's the Backlog items, so you will see the work items from your backlog (according to the sprints).
You can't just add a particular work item to the board.
See more details here.
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?
At the moment, I have one Team with two different area paths defined, however I have issues filtering out the epics and features that are related to one of the area paths since the Filter option does not keep the tree form in its result.
Is there a better way to organize the backlog when I have two different area paths and need easily identify which one a work item belongs to?
Is there a better way to organize the backlog when I have two different area paths and need easily identify which one a work item belongs to?
Method 1. Add "Area Path" as a Column.
Click Column Options at the top and Add "Area Path" as a clumn. Then you can see area directly at the page.
Method 2. Use queries.
Go to Boards/Queries. Create a query and set your Work Item Type and your Area path. Here is an example.
Then select "Tree of work items" in "Type of query".
You will find work items in a specific area arranged in a tree form.
One way to filter is by specifying an area path in the filter text area like:
Note that it does not work with the Kanban board.
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 have a VSTS project based on the Scrum process with two Area Paths for frontend and backend teams. For all Backlog item boards I created a new column to indicate what is 'ready for testing' (splitted in doing and done). For the state mapping I could only chose 'Commited' from the dropdown list.
The root area is configured to include both sub-areas and should provide a broad overview for the product owner about the progress and the tester to see what he needs to do.
My problem is, that when a team moves an item to this column, the change of state is not reflected on the general board. How can I achieve this? Or what are best practices to deal with additional states like 'ready for deployment' and 'ready for test'?
Kanban board states are "per team" so you won't see the change reflected in another team's board (in this case, the top level default team).
If this was on-premise we could add a new underlying State to the Work Item so it worked across teams. I believe this is coming for VSTS but it's not there yet.
VSTS and TFS 2015 Update 1 allow you to Query by Kanban board changes which means you could have a Work Item Query which shows all the items across teams that are Ready For Test on the board.
Depending on exactly what you want to see in your query results, you'll probably have to do something slightly clever with grouping the clauses of your query - ie. (PBI Area Path = Area 1 AND Column State = Ready for test) OR (PBI Area Path = Area 2 AND Column State = Ready for test)