So I´m looking at the Agile Workflow in Azure DevOps and I´m wondering, what´s the purpose of the Feature work item?
I´ve used Jira a lot and we only used Epics->User Stories->Tasks.
I can´t fine any good explanation to why Microsoft has added this WIT to their default workflow.
See here, Adding Features and Epics
I think of it this way, you would define a feature flag around code for a feature because it's a single shippable unit of testable code, but you wouldn't do the same for an epic because it's a hodgepodge of stories related to a business initiative. Having the two WITs allows you to clearly delineate those two needs and to map the user stories accordingly.
Related
We were using Confluence in our company, but now the management has decided to move to SP Online and Azure DevOps. I am looking to write a custom tool, using Powershell and RestAPI to do this job. I understand there are many feature gaps including modern page UI in SP, text formatting etc.
Has anyone worked on something similar like this? If yes, then what was your approach? What are the possible issues I should be prepared for? Me being a non coder would highly appreciate if someone can share a code snippet too.
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
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.
I was thinking it could be ADO, but that would get it confused with a legacy Microsoft data access layer "ActiveX Data Objects" or whatever it stood for... Or DevOps, but that would get it confused with devops in general, and it's not all that much shorter anyway... Is there an official abbreviation or one that has been settled on by the community?
I've seen 'AzDO' used with success and am not aware of any existing conflicts, like with the misused 'ADO' acronym.
From MVP Juan Rafael, as per this slide presentation which seems fairly definitive, slide 43 states:
No abbreviations should be used (especially not ADS). Azure DevOps or #AzureDevOps are the only permitted forms.
As far as i know there is no official abbreviation for Azure DevOps, these are the ones i tend to hear: ADO, ADOPS, VSTS (yep still going strong). but the majority of times i see people just spelling it out fully.
But i'll keep an eye on this thread to see if there will be some consensus reached :P
I prefer ADO over AZDO/AzDO. It should be clear enough of what you're talking based on the general context of your conversations (Cloud vs. . Reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ActiveX_Data_Objects, ADO.NET is the current technology, so ADO is available again ;-)
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