About workflow states in backlogs and boards
TFS 2018
All workflows consist of states, transitions, and reasons. Workflows are defined for a work item type. A transition supports forward and backward movement among two states. When you add a custom state, the system automatically adds transitions from the custom state to all other inherited states (except for Removed).
Each state belongs to a state category (previously referred to as a metastate). State categories support the Agile tool backlog and board views.
Workflow states
Workflow states define how a work item progresses from its creation to closure. The four main states that are defined for the User Story (Agile process) describe a user story's progression. The workflow states are New, Active, Resolved, and Closed. (The Removed state supports removing a work item from appearing on the backlog; for more information, see Move, change, or delete work items.)
The natural progressions and regressions for the work item types - user story (Agile), issue (Basic) product backlog item (Scrum), and requirement (CMMI) - are as shown.
Workflow states: User Story, Agile process
Category states
Category states determine how Agile planning tools and select dashboard widgets treat each workflow state. The state categories used by the backlogs, boards and widgets are Proposed, In Progress, Resolved, and Complete.
Here's how the default, inherited states map to the category states for the four system processes, including Test Plan work item types. The workflow states for Test Case, Test Design, and Test Suite are the same across all four system processes.
Categories
Work tracking
Test tracking
Proposed: Assigned to states associated with newly added work items so that they appear on the backlog. The first column on the Kanban boards and Taskboards map to a Proposed state category.
New
Design (Test Case)
In Progress: Assigned to states that represent active work. Work items assigned to states mapped to this category appear in the backlog (unless you choose to hide them) and make up the middle columns on Kanban boards.
Active (Bug, Epic, Feature, User Story)
Active (Test Plan) In Planning (Test Suite) In Progress (Test Suite) Ready (Test Case)
Resolved: Assigned to states that represent a solution was implemented, but not yet verified. Generally these states apply to bugs. Work items in a Resolved category state appear on the backlog by default. The Agile tools treat the Resolved category state exactly the same as the In Progress category state.
Resolved (Bug)
n/a
Completed: Assigned to states that represent work that has finished. Work items whose state is in this category don't appear on the backlog and do appear in the last column of the Kanban board. You can't modify states in this category nor can you add states to this category.
Closed (Bug, Epic, Feature, User Story)
Closed (Test Case) Completed (Test Suite) Inactive (Test Plan)
Removed: Assigned to the Removed state. Work items in a state mapped to the Removed category are hidden from the backlog and board experiences.
Removed (Epic, Feature, User Story)
n/a
Note
Completed or closed work items don't display on the backlogs and boards once their Changed Date is greater than a year old. You can still list these items using a query. If you want them to show up on a backlog or board, then you can make a minor change to them which resets the clock.
When to add a State versus a Kanban column
Use both States and Kanban columns to track the status of work. Workflow states are shared across a project while Kanban columns are shared within a team. Only project collection admins can add custom states, while team admins can add Kanban columns.
Add custom states when you want all teams to track the status according to the business workflow adopted by the organization. By customizing the process, you automatically customize the projects and work item types that reference that process.
Adding custom states to support workflow states that multiple teams want to track, helps avoid the resulting confusion of different teams creating queries based on a Kanban column. Because each team can customize the Kanban board columns and swimlanes, the values assigned to work items that appear on different boards might not be the same. The primary workaround for this issue is to maintain single ownership of work items by team area path. Another workaround is to formalize the columns by adding custom states that can be shared across teams.
Auto completion of work items with pull requests
When you link a work item to a pull request (PR), you can automatically complete those work items when you complete the PR. For more information, see Auto complete work items with pull requests.
Automate work item state transitions
You can automatically update the state of a work item according to the state of its child tasks. For more information, see Automate work item state transitions.
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