TFS Work Items

Here are a few things I've discovered while trying to work with Work Items in TFS. We are currently using the MS Agile Work Items without any modifications.

Go to Work Item...
There is a very useful menu option, Team | Go to Work Item..., which brings up a dialog box where you can enter a Work Item ID. Click OK and the specified Work Item is opened.

History Notes
On the History tab, there is an area which has a the watermark text "Type your comment here." By clicking there and entering any text and then saving the work item, your text will appear in the list of history items below the date/time and above the changed fields.

This is a useful location to type a message for the person to whom you are (re)assigning a Task, Bug or Scenario. This location is also a useful location to record your thoughts, comments or opinions about a given work item.

Before I discovered this feature, I had been adding comments to the Description tab. I'm glad to know about this comments area in the History tab as this seems like a much more appropriate place for comments.

Add Related Work Item
This menu option allows you to create a new Work Item which will be linked to the current Work Item.

I've discovered a couple of ways to get to the Add Related Work Item menu option.

From the main menu, click Team | Add Related Work Item, and then choose Bug, Task, Scenario, etc.

Or, from within any Work Item, right click anywhere in the main body of the Work Item above the tabs. This will bring up the context menu which has the Add Related Work Item option. You can then choose Bug, Task, Scenario, etc.

Add Link
Of course, you might need to link to an existing Work Item rather than creating a new one.

To do this, select the Links tab and click the Add... button. This brings up the Add Link dialog.

On this dialog, the Link Type should have the Work Item selected. You can also link to a Changeset, Versioned Item, Test Result or Hyperlink. Just leave the Link Type as a Work Item.

If you know the ID of the desired Work Item, just enter that ID in the Work item ID field. If not, click the Browse... button. Which brings up the Choose Related Work Item dialog. I like this dialog because of all the ways that you can use to find the related Work Item. I usually use the Title contains option and might even select a specific type for the and type drop down list.

Once the Work item ID has been entered or selected into the Add Link dialog, the Description field will show the title of the Work Item. (If not -- e.g., because you just entered the number -- press the tab key, and it should appear.)

You can enter something in the Comment field if necessary. I usually leave this blank except when one Scenario uses another one -- then I put something like "688 uses 681."

Once you've got the right Work Item, press the enter key or click the OK button.