Planning, ranking, and priorities field reference

You use planning, ranking, and priority fields to specify which work the team should complete first. By ranking and prioritizing work items, all team members gain an understanding of the relative importance of the work that they must accomplish. Ranking and priority fields are used to build several reports.

You rank and prioritize work items when you create the product backlog.

Tracking fields that appear on work item forms

The following table describes the fields that you can use to plan and prioritize work and that are common to all default process templates. For information about data types and default field attributes, see Define and modify work item fields.

Field name	Description	Reference name	Data type	Default value of the reportable type attribute	Default value of the index attribute
Business Value	A subjective unit of measure that captures the relative business value of a product backlog item or feature compared to other items of the same type. An item that is assigned a higher number should be considered as having more business value than an item that is assigned a lower number.	Microsoft.VSTS.Common.BusinessValue	Integer	Measure	False
Priority	A subjective rating of the bug, issue, task, or test case as it relates to the business. You can specify the following values: 1:  Product cannot ship without the successful resolution of the work item, and it should be addressed as soon as possible. 2:  Product cannot ship without the successful resolution of the work item, but it does not need to be addressed immediately. 3:  Resolution of the work item is optional based on resources, time, and risk. See Note 1.	Microsoft.VSTS.Common.Priority	Integer	Dimension	False
Severity	A subjective rating of the impact of a bug on the project. You can specify the following values: 1 - Critical 2 - High 3 - Medium 4 - Low See Note 1.	Microsoft.VSTS.Common.Severity	String	Dimension	False
Stack Rank (Note 2)	A subjective rating of the user story, task, issue, or bug compared to other work items of the same type. An item that is assigned a lower number should be fixed before an item that is assigned a higher number. (Agile and CMMI process templates) See Note 3.	Microsoft.VSTS.Common.StackRank	Double	Dimension	False

1. To change the menu selection, see Define pick lists.

2. The Stack Rank field is defined for the following work item types in the Agile process template: Bug, Feature, Issue, Task, and User Story.

   The Stack Rank field is defined for the following work item types in the CMMI process template: Bug, Feature, Requirement, Risk, and Task.

   Depending on the process template version used to create your team project and the work item type, the Stack Rank field may not appear on the work item form. In most process template versions starting with the TFS 2013.3 update, the Stack Rank field was removed from most work item forms as described in this blog post: Where is the field on the work item form to order the backlog?.

   To add the field to the form, modify the work item type to add the following control element:

   <Control FieldName="Microsoft.VSTS.Common.BacklogPriority" Type="FieldControl" Label="Backlog Priority" LabelPosition="Left" />

   To learn more, see Import, export, and manage work item types [witadmin].

3. The sequence of items on the product backlog page is determined according to where you have added the items or dragged the items on the page. As you drag items, a background process updates this field which is assigned to type="Order" in the ProcessConfiguration file. See Configure and customize Agile planning tools for a team project.

Scrum-specific fields

The following table describes the fields that you can use to plan and prioritize work when you use the work item types provided with the Visual Studio Scrum process template.

Field name	Description	Reference name	Data type	Default value of the reportable type attribute	Default value of the index attribute
Acceptance Criteria	A description of the criteria to be met before the bug or product backlog item can be closed. Before work begins on a bug or product backlog item, the criteria for customer acceptance should be described as clearly as possible. Conversations between the team and customers to define the acceptance criteria will help ensure that your team understands your customers’ expectations. The acceptance criteria can be used as the basis for acceptance tests so that you can more effectively evaluate whether an item has been satisfactorily completed.	Microsoft.VSTS.Common.AcceptanceCriteria	HTML	None	False
Backlog Priority (Note 1)	A subjective rating of the bug, product backlog item, or task as it relates to the business. See Note 12.	Microsoft.VSTS.Common.BacklogPriority	Double	Detail	False
Blocked	Indicates whether a team member is prevented from making progress toward implementing a task. You can specify Yes or leave it blank.	Microsoft.VSTS.CMMI.Blocked	String	Dimension	False
Resolution	Describes how the impediment was resolved.	Microsoft.VSTS.Common.Resolution	HTML	None	False

1. The Stack Rank field is defined for the following work item types in the Agile process template: Bug, Feature, Issue, Task, and User Story.

   The Stack Rank field is defined for the following work item types in the CMMI process template: Bug, Feature, Requirement, Risk, and Task.

   Depending on the process template version used to create your team project and the work item type, the Stack Rank field may not appear on the work item form. In most process template versions starting with the TFS 2013.3 update, the Stack Rank field was removed from most work item forms as described in this blog post: Where is the field on the work item form to order the backlog?.

   To add the field to the form, modify the work item type to add the following control element:

   <Control FieldName="Microsoft.VSTS.Common.StackRank" Type="FieldControl" Label="Stack Rank" LabelPosition="Left" />

   To learn more, see Import, export, and manage work item types [witadmin].

2. The sequence of items on the product backlog page is determined according to where you have added the items or dragged the items on the page. As you drag items, a background process updates the Stack Rank field which is assigned to type="Order" in the ProcessConfiguration file. See Configure and customize Agile planning tools for a team project.

Agile specific fields

The following table describes the fields that you can use to plan and prioritize work when you use the work item types defined for the Agile process template.

Field name	Description	Reference name	Data type	Default value of the reportable type attribute	Default value of the index attribute
Risk	A subjective rating of the relative uncertainty around the successful completion of a user story. Defined allowed values are: 1 - High 2 - Medium 3 - Low	Microsoft.VSTS.Common.Risk	String	Dimension	False

Formal or CMMI-specific fields

The following table describes the fields that you can use to plan and prioritize work when you use the work item types provided with the MSF formal or CMMI process template.

Field name	Description	Reference name	Data type	Default value of the reportable type attribute	Default value of the index attribute
Blocked	Indicates whether a team member is prevented from making progress toward implementing a requirement or task or resolving a bug, change request, or risk. If an issue has been opened to track a blocking problem, a link should be made to the issue. You can specify Yes or No.	Microsoft.VSTS.CMMI.Blocked	String	Dimension	False
Committed	Indicates whether the requirement is committed in the project or not. You can specify Yes or No. Note You can specify this field only for requirements.	Microsoft.VSTS.CMMI.Committed	String	None	False
Escalate	Indicates whether the issue is affecting the critical path of the project plan. You can specify Yes or No. Note You can specify this field only for issues.	Microsoft.VSTS.CMMI.Escalate	String	None	False
Triage	Indicates the type of triage decision that is pending for the work item. You use this field when the work item is in the Proposed state. You can specify one of the following values: Pending (default) More Info Info Received Triaged Note You can specify this field only for requirements, tasks, change requests, bugs, and issues.	Microsoft.VSTS.Common.Triage	String	Dimension	False

Work item fields and work item types

You can use the tables provided below to look up which fields are tracked for the main work item types provided with each of the default TFS process templates.

Scrum

The following table indicates which data fields you can specify for work item types that are provided with the Visual Studio Scrum process template.

Field Name	Feature	Product Backlog Item	Bug	Task	Impediment
Acceptance Criteria
Blocked
Business Value
Effort
Resolution

Agile

The following table indicates which data fields you can specify for work item types that are provided with the MSF Agile process template.

Field Name	Feature	User Story	Task	Issue	Bug
Business Value
Due Date
Priority
Risk
Severity
Story Points

Formal or CMMI

The following table indicates which data fields you can specify for work item types that are provided with the MSF formal process template.

Field Name	Feature	Requirement	Task	Bug	Change Request	Issue	Risk
Business Value
Blocked
Committed
Escalate
Priority
Probability
Severity
Triage

See Also

Concepts

Effort, schedules, and time tracking field reference

Work item field reference for Visual Studio ALM

Other Resources

Modify or add a field to support queries, reports, and workflow