What is Analytics?

Azure DevOps Services | Azure DevOps Server 2022 - Azure DevOps Server 2019

Analytics is the reporting platform for Azure DevOps, replacing the previous platform based on SQL Server Reporting Services. Built for reporting, Analytics is optimized for fast read-access and server-based aggregations. Use it to answer quantitative questions about the past or present state of your projects.

Note

If you are looking for information about Azure Analysis Services, see Azure Analysis Services.

Specifically, Analytics provides you with insights about your Azure DevOps projects through the following tools:

• Analytics widgets that you can add to your dashboards
• In-context Analytics reports available from select Azure DevOps pages
• Rollup bars and counts for Azure Boards backlogs
• Custom reports you can create using Power BI
• Custom reports you can create using OData queries
• Support to develop and add your custom Analytics widgets you can add to dashboards

Note

The Analytics service is automatically enabled and supported in production for all Azure DevOps Services. Power BI integration and access to the OData feed of the Analytics Service are generally available. We encourage you to use it and give us feedback. Available data is version-dependent. The latest supported version is v2.0, and the latest preview version is v4.0-preview. For more information, see OData API versioning.

Data available in Analytics

Analytics is generally available for Azure DevOps Service and Azure DevOps Server 2020 and later versions. It is in preview for Azure DevOps Server 2019. The service provides a concise data model over Azure DevOps.

Data available via the Analytics service depends on your version and platform. For specifics, read Data available in Analytics and Data model for Analytics.

Analytics is enabled for all Azure DevOps Services projects and automatically populates itself with all available Azure DevOps data. Once populated, it updates itself as data changes occur. For more information, read Data available in Analytics and Performance and latency.

Dashboard widgets

You can create dashboards and add widgets to them. We provide several widgets based on Analytics. These widgets take advantage of the power of Analytics. Widgets provide the easiest way to get insights from your data.

For example, the Velocity widget shown in the following image provides insights into a team's historical performance over six iterations.

Here, the Velocity widget shows that this team has a history of closing stories late. It also shows a discrepancy between planned and completed work across all the sprints displayed. The team can drill into the data to determine the root causes. After implementing new practices, the team can use the Velocity widget to track their effectiveness.

If you want to develop your own widget based on Analytics, see Create an Analytics widget.

In-context reports and roll-up columns

Work tracking in-context reports are now based on Analytics data. These reports appear on the Analytics tab of the product and portfolio backlogs and boards. Also, there are some pipelines and test in-context reports. For more information, see the following articles:

• Cumulative flow
• Team velocity
• View/configure sprint burndown
• Pipeline pass rate report
• Test failures report

Also, you can add rollup columns to product and portfolio backlogs that provide progress bars, counts of work items, or sums of selected fields. For details, see Display rollup progress or totals.

Analytic views

Analytics views is a web portal feature that supports filtering work tracking data for status and trend reports. With Analytics views, you can use default or custom views to generate reports in Power BI. Power BI provides a data connector for Analytics views.

For more information, see What are Analytics views?.

Metadata & OData queries

Analytics is fully accessible via OData. From a web browser, you can query the Analytics metadata or data using an OData query. To learn how, see Construct OData queries for Analytics.

If you would like to prepare custom queries and tooling with our OData API, review Sample reports and quick reference index.

Data connectors and Power BI

Power BI is a suite of business analytics tools. The following data connectors have been implemented to support importing data into Power BI.

• Analytics views
• Odata query
• OData feed

With Power BI, you can perform impromptu analysis, produce beautiful reports, and publish dashboards for enterprise consumption.

To get started with Power BI and Azure DevOps Analytics:

• Read the Power BI integration overview
• Check out the Power BI Sample Reports. They'll get you started quickly on the most popular reports.

Support for custom fields and custom work item types

Custom fields and custom work item types are automatically added to the Analytics data model. Through OData queries, you can view the properties and enumerated lists added to the Analytics service based on process customization.

Next steps

Data available in Analytics

Related articles

• What are Analytics views?
• Data model for Analytics