Friday 22 April 2016

A look at the new Work Item Tracking features in VSTS

I usually don’t do this, but the VSTS teams are overhauling this area at such a pace that makes a knowledge refresh really needed Smile

Aside from the cards layout a few months ago, there are really compelling features added to the platform. It isn’t easy to define what compelling is for WIT, as it is much of user interaction scenarios more than pure technical stuff doing magic, but I find them very, very interesting.

First of all, how many times during a planning meeting you create a Work Item and you then realise you chose the wrong type? Believe it or not, it happens all the times. Now you can just change the type from the UI, easy as that:

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Another feature worth mentioning is the possibility of moving a Work Item between Team Projects. There might be a ton of reasons behind this need, I even heard of a Team Project used for support and escalation requests for multiple products.

Anyway, it is just like this, and you can also change the type here:

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You can also create a new branch from a Work Item (very handy for feature-based development):

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This is a fantastic way of keeping the planning aligned with development, IMHO.

Eventually, you can now follow a Work Item.

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This means you’ll get an email whenever this Work Item is updated by other members of the team – I can already see Product Owners’ hands clapping!

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