Move work items from one team to another team

Article
03/25/2024

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

When you add a team or your teams undergo reorganization, you may need to move work items assigned to one team to new Area Paths owned by another team. All work items are assigned to an Area Path, even if it is at the top of the hierarchy for the project.

Work items that belong to the Requirements category appear on a team's backlog based on their assignment to the Area Path(s) owned by a team. Assigning other work items to a team's Area Path(s) support queries based on team ownership.

To learn how to add a team, see Create or add a team.

Prerequisites

To change the Area Paths of work items, you must be a project member and have permissions to view and edit work items under the Area Path nodes. To learn about these permissions, see Set work tracking permissions, Create child nodes, modify work items under an area or iteration path.
To use Azure CLI commands, you must first install Azure CLI as described in Get started with Azure DevOps CLI.

To change the Area Paths of work items, you must be a project member and have permissions to view and edit work items under the Area Path nodes. To learn about these permissions, see Set work tracking permissions, Create child nodes, modify work items under an area or iteration path.

Move work items under teams

From the web portal, you can perform bulk updates of the Area Path.

Create a query of all work items you want to reassign.
Multi-select those items, which belong to each team, and bulk edit the area path.
After you bulk modify, do a bulk save.

Move a work item using Azure CLI

You can use the az boards work-item update to move a single work item by updating it's Area Path.

az boards work-item update --id
                           [--area]
                           [--assigned-to]
                           [--description]
                           [--discussion]
                           [--fields]
                           [--iteration]
                           [--open]
                           [--reason]
                           [--state]
                           [--title]

Parameters

id: Required. The ID of the work item to update.
area: Optional. Absolute path of an area. Example: --path \ProjectName\Area\AreaName.
assigned-to: Optional. Name of the person the work item is assigned to Jamal.
description: Optional. Description of the work item.
discussion: Optional. Comment to add to a discussion in a work item.
fields: Optional. Space separated "field=value" pairs for custom fields you want to set.
iteration: Optional. Absolute path of an iteration. Example: \ProjectName\Iteration\IterationName.
open: Optional. Open the work item in the default web browser.
reason: Optional. Reason for the state of the work item.
state: Optional. State of the work item, for example, Active.
title: Optional. Title of the work item.

Example

You can only move one work item at a time using Azure DevOps CLI. In this example, we move work item ID=148 under the Fabrikam Fiber\Production Planning area path.

az boards work-item update --id 148 --area "Fabrikam Fiber\Production Planning" --output yaml

The YAML output listed below provides information on each of the fields defined for the work item.

fields:
  Microsoft.VSTS.Common.Priority: 2
  Microsoft.VSTS.Common.StackRank: 1500000001.0
  Microsoft.VSTS.Common.StateChangeDate: '2021-11-23T22:26:28.27Z'
  Microsoft.VSTS.Common.ValueArea: Business
  System.AreaPath: Fabrikam Fiber\Production Planning
  System.AssignedTo:
    _links:
      avatar:
        href: https://fabrikamprime.visualstudio.com/_apis/GraphProfile/MemberAvatars/aad.NDEwY2FkMDQtOWQyOS03NDFlLTk2MmEtNGZlYmU2NGE1NTM4
    descriptor: aad.NDEwY2FkMDQtOWQyOS03NDFlLTk2MmEtNGZlYmU2NGE1NTM4
    displayName: Jamal Hartnett
    id: d291b0c4-a05c-4ea6-8df1-4b41d5f39eff
    imageUrl: https://fabrikamprime.visualstudio.com/_apis/GraphProfile/MemberAvatars/aad.NDEwY2FkMDQtOWQyOS03NDFlLTk2MmEtNGZlYmU2NGE1NTM4
    uniqueName: fabrikamfiber4@hotmail.com
    url: https://spsprodeus27.vssps.visualstudio.com/A5d5b8da6-3db7-4829-baf9-1e500c21cc12/_apis/Identities/d291b0c4-a05c-4ea6-8df1-4b41d5f39eff
  System.BoardColumn: Backlog
  System.ChangedBy:
   _links:
      avatar:
        href: https://fabrikamprime.visualstudio.com/_apis/GraphProfile/MemberAvatars/aad.NDEwY2FkMDQtOWQyOS03NDFlLTk2MmEtNGZlYmU2NGE1NTM4
    descriptor: aad.NDEwY2FkMDQtOWQyOS03NDFlLTk2MmEtNGZlYmU2NGE1NTM4
    displayName: Jamal Hartnett
    id: d291b0c4-a05c-4ea6-8df1-4b41d5f39eff
    imageUrl: https://fabrikamprime.visualstudio.com/_apis/GraphProfile/MemberAvatars/aad.NDEwY2FkMDQtOWQyOS03NDFlLTk2MmEtNGZlYmU2NGE1NTM4
    uniqueName: fabrikamfiber4@hotmail.com
    url: https://spsprodeus27.vssps.visualstudio.com/A5d5b8da6-3db7-4829-baf9-1e500c21cc12/_apis/Identities/d291b0c4-a05c-4ea6-8df1-4b41d5f39eff
  System.ChangedDate: '2022-05-19T22:58:52.93Z'
  System.CommentCount: 0
  System.CreatedBy:
   _links:
      avatar:
        href: https://fabrikamprime.visualstudio.com/_apis/GraphProfile/MemberAvatars/aad.NDEwY2FkMDQtOWQyOS03NDFlLTk2MmEtNGZlYmU2NGE1NTM4
    descriptor: aad.NDEwY2FkMDQtOWQyOS03NDFlLTk2MmEtNGZlYmU2NGE1NTM4
    displayName: Jamal Hartnett
    id: d291b0c4-a05c-4ea6-8df1-4b41d5f39eff
    imageUrl: https://fabrikamprime.visualstudio.com/_apis/GraphProfile/MemberAvatars/aad.NDEwY2FkMDQtOWQyOS03NDFlLTk2MmEtNGZlYmU2NGE1NTM4
    uniqueName: fabrikamfiber4@hotmail.com
    url: https://spsprodeus27.vssps.visualstudio.com/A5d5b8da6-3db7-4829-baf9-1e500c21cc12/_apis/Identities/d291b0c4-a05c-4ea6-8df1-4b41d5f39eff
  System.CreatedDate: '2021-11-23T22:26:28.27Z'
  System.Description: <div>This user story is for documentation purposes.&nbsp; </div>
  System.IterationPath: Fabrikam Fiber\Release 2\Sprint 1
  System.Reason: New
  System.State: New
  System.TeamProject: Fabrikam Fiber
  System.Title: Test the Request feedback functionality
  System.WorkItemType: User Story
  WEF_10182DA5BCCD4CE2A43629FFBD290EF2_Kanban.Column: Backlog
id: 148
relations:
- attributes:
    isLocked: false
    name: Child
  rel: System.LinkTypes.Hierarchy-Forward
  url: https://fabrikamprime.visualstudio.com/854a3f67-9962-43d1-a968-2e5f2eb66c99/_apis/wit/workItems/152
- attributes:
    isLocked: false
    name: Child
  rel: System.LinkTypes.Hierarchy-Forward
  url: https://fabrikamprime.visualstudio.com/854a3f67-9962-43d1-a968-2e5f2eb66c99/_apis/wit/workItems/153
- attributes:
    isLocked: false
    name: Child
  rel: System.LinkTypes.Hierarchy-Forward
  url: https://fabrikamprime.visualstudio.com/854a3f67-9962-43d1-a968-2e5f2eb66c99/_apis/wit/workItems/151
- attributes:
    isLocked: false
    name: Child
  rel: System.LinkTypes.Hierarchy-Forward
  url: https://fabrikamprime.visualstudio.com/854a3f67-9962-43d1-a968-2e5f2eb66c99/_apis/wit/workItems/149
rev: 5
url: https://fabrikamprime.visualstudio.com/854a3f67-9962-43d1-a968-2e5f2eb66c99/_apis/wit/workItems/148

Verify your team backlog

After you move work items from one team to another team, check your team backlog to ensure the items appear. See Create your backlog.

If you encounter any problems, review Set up your project's backlogs and boards.

Share via

Move work items from one team to another team

Prerequisites

Move work items under teams

Move a work item using Azure CLI

Parameters

Example

Verify your team backlog

Feedback

Additional resources

Share via

Move work items from one team to another team

Prerequisites

Move work items under teams

Move a work item using Azure CLI

Parameters

Example

Verify your team backlog

Related articles

Feedback

Additional resources