I have multiple projects that me and my development team are working on at the same time.
I have all teams projects task backlogs at
https://{vstsName}.visualstudio.com/{projectOne}/_backlogs/iteration/Iteration%201
https://{vstsName}.visualstudio.com/{projectTwo}/_backlogs/iteration/Iteration%201
I want to see every backlog at once and can't find a way to view them all at once.
I have tried the Delivery Plans plug in, but this didn't seem to give what I want.
I want to view all tasks and be able to make them active, and possible to see all burn downs at once.
In "Work > Queries > New > New Query" there is a checkbox in the top right of the query editor called "Query across projects". If you check this checkbox then work items from all projects will be included in the query results.
Related
I am using Area Path in Azure DevOps for categorization rather than breaking into separate Teams. So I can't see all the Work Items underneath the Default Backlog. I go into Settings and choose "Include Sub Areas" and I get the following Warning:
Are you sure you want to include sub-areas?
You have selected the root area path as your team's work area. This
causes two things to happen:
All work items that appear on any team backlog will also appear on
your team's backlog.
All work items under this area path will be updated, which might
impact the performance of your server until the changes are complete.
Are you sure you want to do this? If not, choose Cancel, and the
change will not be made.
#1 is what I want, but what are the implications of #2? What is updated on the Work Item? Will the Assigned To user be emailed of the change?
For #2. The items will be stackranked again to define the backlog order for all work items in the selection. I've seen instances that had millions of work items and the recalculation of the backlog priority field and mapping to your team's custom board columns may take a while in that case.
This field is excluded from the standard email notifications.
Sorry if this isn't the right place for this, but all the devops question I see on stack exchange seem to be in stackoverflow.
I've begun working with Azure DevOps, and something I'm noticing is that managing items becomes more cumbersome as I add in more bugs, stories, etc... I'm searching for a way to be able to manage and prioritize these items more easily, and I was wondering if it's possible to have multiple backlogs. Say one for bugs, then one for enhancements, one for support tickets. The issue I'm running into is that we only have one team of developers, so ideally this would all be housed under one team so all these items can be dealt with in a single team's sprint instead of a sprint for each team.
Initially I thought that queries might be a viable option, but when creating them I quickly learned that I cannot reorder items. So that ended that idea.
I also considered just viewing the backlog with a filter to only show what I'm looking for, but that too does not allow me to reorder items easily. It looks like I can drag n drop them, but that doesn't work. I can open the ellipsis menu and choose "move to position", but that's far too clunky of a solution when you have many work items. I also sometimes get conflict errors when trying to move them in that manner.
So I keep coming back to the idea of multiple backlogs for a single team. Is this possible? I don't really see anything in the documentation, and I don't even know if this is considered best practice? Any insights are greatly appreciated.
Sounds like you have tried the out the most obvious ways of filtering and searching for workitems in the backlog and on the boards.
What you can setup is an hierarchy of area paths and (sub)teams to allow for filtered view of the backlog.
Consider the following structure of area paths
ProjectName
- Bugs
- Enhancements
- Tickets
Then you create 4 teams, each corresponding to one node in the Area Path tree (make sure to tick the box include children for all of them). As you now have 4 teams you also get 4 backlogs. The top level team that maps to ProjectName will contain the full backlog (equivalent to what you have now). The other three will only show workitems under their respective area path. You can now use those 3 teams to view filtered versions of the backlog (or boards), but still maintain a single backlog on top level.
As Iterations are defined per project, and are shared across teams, you can continue with one set of iterations and add them to all teams, making them shared.
By this setup any team member can jump between the different subteams to view their preferred filtered version of the backlog (or the complete backlog on the root team)
This feels kinda hackish, setting up new "Teams" just to filter the backlog and whether this is considered best practice or not isn't straightforward to answer. Generally an Agile team should have one backlog and prioritize it as a whole but one could argue that the top level combined backlog fills that purpose and the sub backlogs are used for easier management and for visualizing only parts of the backlog. After all Agile is not about tools it is about being productive.
As danielorn's answer, you can set up multiple iterations. But you don't need to set up multiple teams, you can just use your currently team.
You can try the following steps to see whether this method can fit your requirement.
Step 1. Go to Project Settings -> Boards/Project configuration, create some new child Iterations of your project. In your case, you can leave out the start and end dates of the iteration. Just like this:
Step 2. Go to Boards/Backlogs -> View Options (top right corner) -> Choose "Planning".
Step 3. Click "New Sprint" in the Planning Side Pane, add the Iterations you have created in step1 to the Planning. (Of course, you can skip step 1 and directly create new iterations here, but the iterations you create here must have start and end dates.)
Step 4. Drag the work item to the corresponding Iteration. Then click the iteration, you will see a "new" Backlog that only has work items of this iteration.
I am trying to move/copy my Work Items into a different project. I will need all the Epics, Features, User stories, Tasks, comments, links etc.
The steps given here show how to move a single work item, so my plan is to move my Epics which were only a handful and not have to move each and every user story/task. But unfortunately when the Epic is moved, the children are left behind.
Is there any other way to do this?
I saw this Excel solution, but doesn't look like its copying the comments.
You may use a bulk move:
Create new query to select your work items Create and save managed queries with the query editor:
Select all work items in the query result and select move:
Select your new team project:
Save all work items:
I still didn't get it.
Where do complete backlog stays if we have to plan for new sprint and pick items from backlog. Like I can see stories/features but what about all bugs/issues, where they can be seen?
I don't want to search for all items in queries/work items. How can I bring all work items in backlog?
Sounds like you're using the Agile template, which doesn't put everything on the product backlog by default. You can edit the backlog settings to put the bug workitem on the backlog. You can find this setting in the Backlog customization screen, as long as Bug is configured to show up as a requirement, it should show up on the product backlog:
Since issues follow a completely different workflow, they cannot be placed on the product backlog. I would guess that they're being used as something else than what they were meant for. But you'd have to help me with additional information. The Issue work item type is the scrum equivalent of an Impediment. Anything that is blocking the team from progressing effectively. These aren't part of the work that goes into the product and are not managed on the same list.
If you're using the Issue work item as a different kind of Bug/Defect then I recommend either creating a custom field on bug to signal the bug type or create a new work item type that is a copy of bug to start with, that way it starts out with all the fields required for it to show up on the backlog.
I have inherited a Visual Studio Team Services instance and it has a single project that covers all development in a certain area (BizTalk).
However, we run more than one Biztalk development project and so we require Epics, Stories and Tasks to be split into Areas, otherwise all tasks for different developments show up in the same Backlog list.
However, when I create an Area as a sub of the top level and set the work items to use that date I can no longer see that work item in the Backlog.
I thought I could select the Area from the Project drop-down but it is not there.
I can still see the Work Items if I use a query.
How do I set up VSTS so that I can see sub Areas in the Backlog?
You need to assign Areas and Iterations to the Team. Then all the work items in those areas and in those iterations will show up in the Backlog of the Team.
Example:
To select areas for team 'Team UI 1' in team project 'alm_vsts', assure you have on the top right:
Then select the settings (i.e. the gear icon ), then select Work. You will see beneath the 'Iterations' and 'Areas' tabs.
Select 'Areas' and you could see the areas selected (or assigned to) the team 'Team UI 1':
For each area you could decide whether to include sub areas or not (as shown in screenshot).
The same stands for the Iterations.
Hence you must select the Areas and the Iterations that the work item must have in order to appear on the Backlog for your team.
Note: if you need more then one hierarchical backlog (containing on multiple levels user stories, features, epics), you must create one team each hierarchical backlog.
Using Teams may solve your problem. When you create a Team, you have automatically an Area and work items are filtered on that Area in Backlog and Boards.