VSTS vs Trello - Workflow - azure-devops

We are currently using Trello to manage our workflow, however some of the developers want to change to VSTS and others want to stay with trello.
Can one give any insight as to what product is best?

It is based on your requirement, if current system meet your requirement and you don’t have the time to learn and transform to other product, you can use current product, otherwise I recommend you to learn VSTS and check with your requirement.
Regarding VSTS, there are many features, such as code manage (Git and TFVC) that can track changes, review code etc...; build and release system that you can verify project and deploy if needed; Package Management that you can manage the packages like Nuget.org. Also there are Scrum, Agile and CMMI process templates that can meet to different management workflow.

Related

How to manage different "project branches" with DevOps

I am currently working on a project and in this moment we have a Release Candidate, which is supposed to go under an official V&V and then it will undergo a FDA submission (medical devices Software).
At the same time, we need to go ahead with another branch of the same project, adding some features, changing some of the requirements for the features that now are going under V&V, removing some of them.
This means that we will need to add, edit, delete some of our Requirements in DevOps to be aligned with the new features, but we also need to continue managing the requirements that are now valid for the Release Candidate under V&V, even if some of them will not be valid anymore in the new branch.
What would be the best choice to manage this situation with devOps?
In general, how to manage a version that starts from a certain point in the project and follows a partially different path with slight or heavy differences in the requirements?
What we would need is some kind of "versioning" of all the work items (requirements, test cases etc) we have currently in devOps. Is that possible?
Thank you!

Is there any Roadmap creation feature for Projects in Azure DevOps as its there in JIRA?

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

VSTS Agile Process Template - User Story as child of Epic and ignore Feature WIT

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

VSTS kanban board to manage multiple projects

I recently inherited the management of a few legacy applications and the associated development team of 3. Currently, the team manages work visa emails. There is no central place to see all work. Some of the projects have their own VSTS sites.
I would like have a single/ unified intake process, work board. Is there a way to have a VSTS site sit on top of other VSTS sites to provide this view. Other option I can think of is to bring in these applications as separate repositories under a single VSTS site ( assuming VSTS allows this).
Anyone with prior experience, please suggest other ways to do it. Yes, I am stuck with VSTS - corporate standard
If you are using git in VSTS, then you can have multiple repositories.
This would be a good approach. https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/willy-peter_schaub/2014/11/19/many-git-repositories-but-one-team-project-to-rule-them-all/
Then you can create teams within the same team project to separate backlogs, sprints, kanbans for each team. See https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/vsts/work/scale/multiple-teams?view=vsts
You will also be able to see a kanban/backlog for the full team and you could even use the Plans hub to group all your teams together in a unified view. See https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/vsts/work/scale/review-team-plans?view=vsts and https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/vsts/work/backlogs/backlogs-boards-plans?view=vsts

Differences of Bug tracking in Agile process and Scrum process of VSTS 2017?

With the ability to configure how the bugs should manage, I'm confuse what to select as a process when I create a team project in VSTS 2017.
In the Microsoft guidance they say Agile
works great if you want to track user stories and (optionally) bugs on the Kanban board, or track bugs and tasks on the task board.
But even I select Scrum as the process, the bugs can be configure not to manage on the Kanban board.
and further
Choose Agile when your team uses Agile planning methods, including Scrum, and tracks development and test activities separately.
Isn't this same even I select Scrum as the process? I couldn't see any differences from the interfaces.
Of cause by choosing, Agile I can track original estimation and the completed work alone with the reaming work.
So what are the other differences, which I go for a one over the other? May be some reports like Stories Overview Report
Regarding Bug tracking, the workflows are different: Workflow states, transitions, and reasons.
For Agile process, the forecasting is based on Story Points and for Scrum process, it is based on Effort.
Regarding report, the link you provide is used for on-premises TFS. You can show report that you want in the custom widget or hub extension, so no difference.
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