State Transitions in Visual Studio Team Services - azure-devops

Is it possible to customise the transitions between states on work items on VSTS? I have some custom states and want to restrict what the next available states are.
For example when a new bug is raised in the 'New' state the user should only able to select 'In Progress', 'Rejected' etc. But they should not be able to selected 'Closed'
This was possible in TFS but I can't find anywhere in VSTS to do this.

Currently it's not possible to add restrictions to the state workflow using work item rules. Though there may be a couple of tricks by clearing a field, making it read-only and making it required when the state is changed to an undesirable state.
Work Item rules were a recent addition and not all restrictions from the old XML model are currently supported.
When you import a TFS collection into VSTS there is an option to keep using the XML model to manage processes. Those accounts do support many of the old configuration options and restrictions.

Related

AzureDevops process custom rules can't change Team project

I have problem with configuration of AzureDevOps process.
My goal is simply automate work items - when work item changes state to done or is in state done on certain board I want to transfer it on other board.
I tried to achieve this by applying custom rules in my organization. Example:
I navigate to Organization Settings, select Process then I select process from list (is inherited from Scrum parent). Then I select bug (for example) and go to rules tab.
Here is screen of my configuration
Both Board no.1 and Board no.2 exist as Team Projects. I've added clearing assign to field and this one works properly.
I wondering if there is much easier way to automate moving work items through boards or team projects on status change.
I wondering if there is much easier way to automate moving work items
through boards or team projects on status change.
For this issue, I am afraid there is no easier way to achieve this requirement. Azure Devops has provided a built-in custom rule function to achieve this. This is already a very easy way.
In addition, we can also achieve this through the azure logic app, but this needs to be set in the azure portal. I don’t think it will be more convenient than custom rules.
To move work items to another project, you must be a member of the Project Administrators group or be granted explicit permissions to move work items.

Query regarding Backlog Levels in Azure Devops

I'm trying to configure and customize the Azure DevOps tool as per the requirement for my application development team. In the boards setting, I have selected the option "Bugs are managed with Tasks" to get a good view of my sprint items. However, my team reports post production issues as Bugs in the tool and enabling the above mentioned setting doesn't allow me to view these Bugs in the Kanban Boad. Reason is they are not linked with any User Story.
I have been exploring the options in Backlog levels options available in the Processes settings and found that the Backlog level "Stories" is tagged only for User Story.
My query here is can i try linking Bug and Task to the already existing "Stories" backlog level. Azure DevOps does gives option to create a custom backlog level and custom Work item type. I would like to customize the existing functionality to best fit my team. Please let me know if there is a work around.
Query regarding Backlog Levels in Azure Devops
This behavior is by designed and there is no way to fix it at present for the exists Work item type Bug.
Because there is only one requirement backlog and it cannot be removed, but can be renamed and edited:
There is an user voice about this request on the Developer Community.
As workaround, we could create a custom the Work item type and add it to backlog level, for example, I create a custom Work item type BugWithoutTask, then add it portfolio backlog:
Then go to backlog settings and enable new backlog:
Now, we could these BugwithoutTask in the Kanban Boad:
You could check this document for some more deails.
Hope this helps.

Azure DevOps Backlogs: How do you handle sub-features (features within features)?

Within our software, we want to implement a grid-style "Editor" for filling in information for various components. This Editor is itself a feature, and is expected to do several things out-of-the box. Most of these of these behaviors are simple and work well as Work Items.
However, one feature of the Editor that we want to implement is an auto-fill button for a particular column. This auto-fill feature is fairly involved and will really require multiple work items of its own. So it's essentially a feature within a feature.
However, from what I can tell, DevOps doesn't play very nice with features within features. You can do it, by creating a Work Item under a feature and then converting it to a feature. But then you can't drag to re-order those sub-features like you can sub-Work Items.
So, what's the "proper", best-practice, officially-supported way to handle "features of other features"? Just create the sub-features at the same level as the main feature? This seems very unorganized... but I don't know of a better fully-supported way...
EDIT: To clarify, one of the reasons we'd like to have "sub-Features" at the same level as "sub-Work Items" (in addition to just grouping everything relating to the parent feature together) is so that we can re-order and prioritize sub-Features amid the rest of the sub-Work Items for the parent feature.
Agree with Daniel,creating a new backlog level between Epics and Features is a solution.
To do it , first,your project needs to use a inherited process . You can create inherited process in the Process of Boards in Organization Setting.
Then in the inherited process, you can create a new work item type as a backlog level between Epics and Feature.

VSTS: Group level between feature and work item

I am working as a Product Owner for a development team using scrum, we are using VSTS for our backlog.
So far I have been organizing my backlog using Epics and Features, I am mainly using features.
I use Features both to group work items but also for keeping control of delivering stuff. If I for instance know that I need to deliver a certain functionality a certain day then I create a Feature for that and include the needed work items. I need to do that because I manage many projects simultaneously.
So far, so good.
But now Product Management want to start creating Epics and Features for them to organize work. I can live without the Epics, and it is fine that they create the features and I add work items. But when I start executing I need some way to organize into deliverables.
Any idea how I can do that, basically I need a group like features but in between feature and work item
You can add tags for your and other Epics to distinguish them...
basically I need a group like features but in between feature and work item
Alternatively you can create a new work item type like features. Please see Customize a project using an inherited process for details.
Create an inherited process
Custom the process
Add a new work item type
...
Apply the customized process to your project
UPDATE:
You need to add a new Portfolio backlog level, but in Azure DevOps (VSTS) the new Portfolio backlogs can only be added as the top level, that means the hierarchy should be Deliverable > Epic > Feature > Backlog Item.
So, in this case you can rename them to match your requirements, for example rename Feature to Deliverable, Epic to Feature, Deliverable to Epic...
Please see Customize your backlogs or boards for details.

How to 'Remove' bugs from the backlog from VS Online using Agile process template

We have a project on VS online that uses the Agile process template. We have configured this project to
.
If I create a bug, I can't unfortunately delete it afterward. The 'State' dropdown only includes the 'New', 'Closed', 'Active' and 'Resolved' values. This does not match with what Microsoft documents in the following page. If you look at the section labeled 'Q: What workflow states does Agile support?', it says that you can go from 'New' to 'Removed'.
Why I am not able to do this change? What can I do to remove bugs that were created by mistake or that were simply not valid?
Note that I am the administrator of the project.
Sorry about the confusion. The Removed state is not part of the Agile Process Template, and we will update the documentation to reflect this.
We will also fix the product moving forward to allow to remove bugs on the backlog. Keep an eye to the release notes (and subscribe to the rss feed) to learn when we have fixed it.
Ewald Hofman (TFS/VSO Program Manager)
I can get the same behavior with you, so I help you submit a feedback on Microsoft Connect website, you can track the feedback from this link:
https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/1986844
For now, you can delete the bug via destroywi command:
witadmin destroywi /collection:https://<your project>.visualstudio.com/defaultcollection /id:<bug ID>