Managing Work items with Azure Boards
Tags: azureboards, workitems, agileplanning, portfoliomanagement
Published: 2024-01-02 15:44:39

For agile planning and portfolio management, Azure Boards is an effective tool to manage work items.

What are work items in Software development project? They are used to track the features and requirements of your project, code bugs and risks that may be associated with the project. As demonstrated in my article on [Agile Planning and Portfolio management](https://dev.to/yemmyoye/azure-boards-an-effective-tool-for-agile-planning-and-portfolio-management-gc1), while creating the project, **EShopOnWeb**, **Scrum** was selected as the Work item process. This will determine the work item types available on which each work item will be based. In this blog, I will demonstrate how to manage work item available for tracking information under the Scrum process. However, there are other options of work item process that you can select from. These are Agile process, Basic process and CMMI process. Work items plays an essential role in accomplishing the overall project because work items are individual tasks that made up the entire project. They can be used to describe work to be done, impediments to be released, test definitions or other key items.

Let's get to work now! There is a pre-requisite for this Lab on managing work items, that we will do first. That is, a preconfigured **Parts Unlimited** team project. (NB: It is a requirement for some Azure DevOps Lab).

<u>Configuring Parts Unlimited Teams Project</u>

**Step 1**
 We will use Azure DevOps Demo Generator to automate the 
 creation of a new Azure DevOps project within my account that 
 is prepopulated with content like work items, repos etc. To do 
 this, I will open this link on my browser 
 https://azuredevopsdemogenerator.azurewebsites.net/ and sign in 
 using the Microsoft account associated with my Azure DevOps 
 subscription

 ![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/9mtj0cefm8civza11ojf.png)
     
**Step 2**
I will accept the permission request for accessing my subscription.

**Step 3**
Click on the dropdown on the right side of **Select organisation** to select on your Azure DevOps organisation and type **Parts Unlimited** as the name of the project.

![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/bwx8wqm95svfd49r9rlt.png)

**Step 4**
Click on **Choose Template** as shown in the image above. Select **Parts Unlimited**. Next, click on **Select Template**


![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/ksk9cn0lq4mv597jwva1.png)

**Step 5**
Click on **Create Project**


![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/inmyxmqlz7uepbw8wbji.png)

Yeah! We are ready to move on to the main Lab to demonstrate how to manage work items with Azure Boards

<u>Managing Work items</u>
To demonstrate this, we will use work items to set up the plan to extend the Parts Unlimited site, project created above, with a product training section.

**Step 1**
Log in to your Azure DevOps portal and on the vertical navigational pane, click on **Boards** and select **Work items**.
Next, click on **+ New Work Item** and select **Epic**


![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/k4w5mr1wtl495p8zu3te.png)

**Step 2**
In the Title box, type **Product Training** and click on  **Unassigned** entry and from the dropdown menu select your user account to assign the new work item to yourself.

![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/19pewh6i2q0l5fw9i701.png)

**Step 3**
By the side of **Area** entry, Click on **EShopOnWeb** entry as shown in the image below


![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/vo5eqyk2dg42jbhg44st.png)

From the dropdown menu, select **EShop-Web**. The **Area** will be set to **EShopOnWeb\EShop-Web**.

![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/7cem0tohobt3ok0gdbab.png)

**Step 4**  
By the side of **Iteration** entry, Click on **EShopOnWeb** entry

![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/1ei25rerd58lbetizmcw.png)

From the dropdown menu, select **Sprint 2**. The **Iteration** will be set to **EShopOnWeb\Sprint 2**. Then click on **Save** <u>but do not close the page</u>

![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/jlv3hgizfdsjkv079l2k.png)


![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/qfewq0ondvfbg1o7d6pc.png)

**Step 5**
In the **Related work** section, click on **+ Add link**. Then select **New item** from the dropdown menu. 


![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/xt7krvp88khrbl0wxvlj.png)


![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/bzcyj1z2zjl0cujxkgr0.png)

Now, click on the **Link type** and from the dropdown list, select **Child**; next on the dropdown list of **Work item type** select **Feature**; in the **Title** textbox, type **Training Dashboard** and click **OK**


![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/wr00wka0tgvq8x7etem9.png)

**Step 6**
On the New Feature **Training Dashboard**, click on **Save and Close**


![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/dakz0yry3g03a8d0aggw.png)

**Step 7**
On the Azure DevOps navigation pane in the **Boards** menu, click on **Boards**, then **EShop-Web boards** as shown below


![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/481cvf4zmyyt0i0b1mp0.png)

In the upper right corner of the page, click on **Backlog items** and from the dropdown menu select **Features**


![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/e720f9plqmzs02imv9pe.png)

**Step 8**
Hover the cursor on the rectangle representing the **Training Dashboard** feature. This will reveal the ellipsis symbol **(...)** in its upper right corner, click on it and from the dropdown menu, select **Add Product Backlog item**


![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/ggi4w0gq2oxrxo9b9xkb.png)

**Step 9**
In the textbox of the new product backlog item, type **As a customer, I want to view tutorials** and press the Enter key to save the entry. This will create a new product backlog item (PBI) Work item that is a child of the feature and shares its area and iteration

Repeat the same step to add these two product backlog items:
 **As a customer, I want to see tutorials I recently viewed**
 **As a customer, I want to request new tutorials**


![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/9jsjj3fs2gyuciwzp2cu.png)

**Step 10**
In the upper right corner of the **Boards** panel, select the **Features** entry and from the dropdown menu, select **Backlog items**


![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/luu824eyjpjlv6bf5v2u.png)


![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/zynovmhmwr38571jgb79.png)

**Step 11**
On the **Board** tab of the **EShop-WEB** panel, I will drag the first work item: **As a customer, I want to view new tutorials** from the **New stage** and drop it under the **Approved stage**


![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/veaelzd3sebu0ugq7y9l.png)

**Step 12**
On the rectangle representing the first work item that I moved to the **Approved** stage, I will hover the cursor to reveal a down facing caret symbol and click on it to expand the work item card. Then click on **Unassigned** and assign the PBI to myself.


![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/1oxmwcmlvnx1e1y5tlaq.png)

**Step 13**
I will drag the second work item, **As a customer, I want to see tutorials I recently viewed** from the **New** stage and drop it on the **Committed** stage.
I will drag the third work item, **As a customer, I want to request new tutorials** from the **New** stage and drop it on the **Done** stage.

![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/kncq64n9lnddlfcyv7na.png)

**Step 14**
On the **Board** tab of the **EShop-WEB** pane, at the top of the pane, click on **Backlog** to display the tabular form.


![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/n4lj586fsb8ls8wgjhpf.png)

**Step 15**
Still on the **Backlog tab** of the **EShop-WEB** pane, in the upper left corner of the pane, click the second plus sign from the top, the one next to the first work item. This will display the **NEW TASK** panel. 
In the **Enter title** textbox, type **Add page for most recent tutorials**.
In the **Remaining Work** textbox, type **5**
In the **Activity** dropdown menu, select **Development** 
Then click on **Save & Close**


![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/vgpep79b165wjzi4w4ky.png)

**Step 16**
We will repeat Step 15 above to add another task.
Click on the plus sign from the top
On the **NEW TASK** panel, in the **Enter Title** textbox type **Optimize data query for most recent tutorials** 
In the **Remaining Work** textbox, type **3**
In the **Activity** dropdown menu, select **Design** 
Then click on **Save & Close**

![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/n0ztvyphkupplai4dzof.png)

![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/uvtwdmjyn0stsjtqr84t.png)
 
Waoh! In this task we have been able to have a walkthrough on how to manage work items with a popular agile tool, Azure Boards. Simple, not so?

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