Many enterprise organizations add multiple projects to support their business needs. While we recommend that you maintain a single project to keep things simple, there are instances where you might need multiple projects. In that event, several questions arise as to what tasks are supported when working with two or more projects.
This article addresses these questions. For more information about specific cross-project features, see Work across projects.
Note
Users added to the Project-Scoped Users group can only access projects they're added to. For more information, see About projects and scaling your organization, Project-scoped User group.
Projects
How many projects should I create?
In general, we recommend that you create a single project. However, certain business needs, such as supporting a public project or applying security policies, might require creating more than one project. For more information, see one of the following articles.
Can I connect to more than one project at a time?
When you connect from a web browser, you can connect to different projects from different browser tabs. When you connect from a client or IDE, you can only connect to a single project at a time. For more information, see Connect to team projects.
How do I view all projects available to me?
How do I turn off cross-project collaboration?
If you want to limit users to view or modify select work items, set permissions on Area Paths. However, there's no method for limiting users to linking work items that reside in different projects.
Dashboards and reports
Can I create a dashboard with information that spans two or more projects?
There's limited support for widgets that you add to a dashboard from different projects. Specifically, you can add Burndown and Burnup charts from different projects to a dashboard. Query-based widgets reference queries that you define, which can reference other projects. You can also use an Embedded Webpage widget to display data from a URL, such as a backlog, board, or an Analytics chart from for a team. However, the backlog, board, or chart displays using the display preferences set by the currently logged in user viewing the dashboard.
The only way to view data from different projects is to use Query-based widgets or Embedded Webpage widgets. Query-based widgets reference queries that you define, which can reference other projects. Embedded Webpage widgets display data from a URL, such as a backlog, board, or chart for a team in different projects. However, the backlog, board, or chart displays using the display preferences set by the currently logged in user viewing the dashboard.
Note
There's a suggested feature, Single Dashboard for Multiple Projects that you can review and up vote.
Can I create a report that spans two or more projects?
Yes. The Analytics service and Power BI reports support the creation of reports that span two or more projects. For more information, see Create a Power BI report with an OData Query.
Azure Boards and work tracking
Can I query across projects?
Yes. You can create work item queries that span all projects within an organization or filter for specific projects. Also, you can use the search tool to perform work item searches across all projects in an organization. For more information, see one of the following articles.
Can I view a Kanban board of work items defined in different projects?
Yes. The Query Based Boards Marketplace extension supports this feature. You can view a Kanban board view of a flat-list query of work items.
Can I link work items across projects?
Yes. You can use any link type you want to link work items defined in different projects. You must define the projects within the same organization or project collection. For more information, see Link user stories, issues, bugs, and other work items.
Can I query for work items linked across projects?
No. There's a prohibitive performance cost for trying to execute such a query, so it isn't supported.
Can I export a cross-project query to Excel?
No. Cross-project queries don't open in Excel. However, you can export a cross-project query to a .csv file, open it in Excel, and import it to Azure Boards. For more information, see Bulk import or update work items using CSV files.
Can I link work items across organizations or collections?
Yes across organizations. See Link user stories, issues, bugs, and other work items; Link to a remote work item.
No across collections, as it isn't a supported feature.
Can I perform capacity planning across projects?
No. Azure Devops doesn't store capacity planning data in the work tracking data store or Analytics service, as it isn't a supported feature.
How do I manage dependencies across projects?
To manage dependencies in Azure Boards, you can link work items using the Predecessor/Successor link type. To learn how, see Link user stories, issues, bugs, and other work items.
Can I query for work items linked across projects?
No. There's a prohibitive performance cost for trying to execute such a query, so it isn't supported.
Azure Boards customization
Can I apply an Inherited process defined in one organization to another organization?
Yes. To perform this operation, you need to export the process and import it to the other organization. While there's no import/export user interface, you can use the Process Migrator for Node.js application.
Can I apply an Inherited process defined in one collection to another collection?
Yes. To perform this operation, you need to export the process and import it to the other collection. While there's no import/export user interface, you can use the Process Migrator for Node.js application.
Azure Repos
Can I set branch policies across repositories within a project?
Yes. Cross-repository policies apply to all or a selection of the repositories in the projects. Do so from Project settings > Repositories > Policies. Add a custom policy and specify if it's for all repositories or choose to which repositories it should apply. For more information about branch policies, see Improve code quality with branch policies.
Yes. Cross-repository policies apply to all or a selection of the repositories in the projects. Do so from Project settings > Cross-repo policies. Add branch protection and specify if it's for all repositories or choose to which repositories it should apply. For more information, see Cross-repo branch policy administration and Improve code quality with branch policies.
How can I find all completed pull requests across projects?
There's no user interface feature to extract this information. You can use the REST API to get this information as follows:
- Get all projects using Projects-List.
- Get all repositories of each project using Repositories - List.
- Get all pull requests of each repository using Pull Requests - Get Pull Requests.