Quick post - 2 really cool features about Work Items

I’ve just returned from Tech Ed Australia and New Zealand and I’ve got lots to blog about that.

But before I do that, 2 features about Work Items caught my eye tonight that I really wanted to share.

First, you can copy a single work item to another Team Project by simply right-clicking on it.

CreateCopy

When you choose Create Copy of Work Item…  you get a choice of what Team Project and Work Item Type you like to make the copy to. 

Copy

Neat stuff!  I am perpetually working on my tool for copying work items en mass, and in all honesty I had overlooked this feature before.  Now I wonder if this is exposed in the API somewhere   I don’t think it is, but maybe it is something we can do in the future.

Another neat feature is the way process guidance is integrated – let’s say that you’re wondering what the lifecycle of a given work item type is.  For example, do bugs go from active to resolved to closed; or active to approved to resolved to close?  If you’re ever wondering, just right-click on the work item and view the process template.

Guidance

This will bring up the process template at exactly the place that is pertinent at the moment.  One can easily view every related to this work item type in the guidance.

MSF

If you customize your process guidance, then you can be taken to information that pertinent to your organization as well.

Lately I’ve been trying to drill into the depths of work item tracking and these 2 tips caught my eye so I wanted to share.  It never ceases to amaze me how dense of a product VSTS 1.0 is.

Anyways, hope you’re doing well, look for a Tech Ed wrap up post from me soon.

Thanks!

Eric.