Azure DevOps Server provides a set of integrated tools that allow teams to effectively manage the life cycle of their software project. The team in Azure DevOps Server is encapsulated within the container of a team project. A team project is a logical container that's used to isolate all tools and artifacts associated with a software application in a single namespace.  

The conceptual boundary that was introduced through the team project eliminates the problem of having access to unrelated artifacts such as code, work items, or release information that isn't relevant to your application's development. Related team projects can be grouped together into a team project collection. Team project collections can be used to introduce a physical separation between a group of related team projects by hosting them in separate databases.

An instance of Azure DevOps Server is capable of supporting multiple team project collections, and each team project collection can internally host multiple team projects. A team project can house multiple teams. As illustrated in the following diagram, the process template is scoped at the team project level. Multiple team projects in a team project collection can use different process templates; however, multiple teams within a single team project will need to use the same process. Teams, however, have autonomy on the level of the backlogs they choose and the workflows on the Kanban board. The delivery framework of choice is applied through the Process Template, which, in turn, applies the delivery framework-specific terminology, artifacts, and workflows to the team project and all teams within the team project:

The process template defines the set of work item types, queries, and reports that can be used to plan and track the project. In this recipe, we'll learn how to create a new Team Project using the Scrum template.

To create a team project, you need to be a member of the Project Collection Administrators group. If you aren't already part of this group, gain membership by following the steps provided here https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/vsts/security/set-project-collection-level-permissions. Alternatively, follow the steps provided at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/vsts/security/set-project-collection-level-permissions to be added to one.

To create  a new team project from the web, follow these steps:

1. Launch a browser and navigate to the Azure DevOps Server Portal.
2. From the top right side, click the +Create project button:

3. Provide a name for your new team project, select its initial source control type, and select a process to create a team project. The work item process is a one time choice and cannot be changed once set. See Choosing the right version control for your project (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/repos/tfvc/comparison-git-tfvc?view=azure-devops) and Choose a process (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/boards/work-items/guidance/choose-process?view=azure-devops) for guidance:

The following items are created for you as part of the team project creation process:

• Dashboards: A canvas to bring key information radiators to raise visibility within and outside the team
• Code: A code repository (Git/TFVC) based on your selection is provisioned
• Work: All agile planning and tracking tools are nested under this hub. 
  • Team: A default team with the same name as the team project is provisioned.
  • Area Path: A default Area Path with the same name as the name of the Team is provisioned. The teams' backlog is configured to show work items assigned to this Area Path.
  • Iteration Path: The set of iterations is pre-created for the team.
  • Team Portal: The Team Portal allows the Team members to connect to TFS to manage source code and work items, and build and test efforts.
• Build & Release: Automated pipelines to build and release your application
• Test: Plan, track, and execute tests
• Wiki: To share knowledge and documentation with the team

These are shown in the following screenshot:

Azure DevOps Server makes the process of setting up a new team project very straightforward—so much so that you may be inclined to create a new team project for every software project. I would generally not recommend this; with support for multiple teams and backlog isolation at the team level, it is possible to have a logical separation, along with the ability to share within a team project. In principle, you should consider a team project for each product, and a team for each work stream. The only time you should consider splitting a product team out into a separate team project is if it needs to follow a unique process, since process templates are scoped at the team project rather than at the team level. 

If you find yourself organically needing to grow out into a new team project to use a different process template, you can consider leveraging the VSTS Migration Toolkit (https://nkdagility.com/vsts-sync-migration-tools/) to carry out a full fidelity migration. 

In Scrum, the taskboard is a visual display of the progress of the Scrum team during a sprint. It presents a snapshot of the current sprint backlog, allowing everyone to stay synchronized and focused on the work to be done. Most of the time, smaller teams are distributed across multiple locations, and in these situations, tracking work with a digital tool helps distributed teams synchronize more effectively. Some of us are lucky enough to land on green field projects, which gives us the opportunity to start tracking the requirements of work items from inception. Other times, projects are planned in tools that don't natively support integration with Azure DevOps Server. Luckily, most planning tools allow you to extract the data to Excel. Azure DevOps Server natively supports importing work items through Excel, but the challenge is mostly working out which fields in the spreadsheet should map out to work items in Azure DevOps Server. In this recipe, we'll learn how to import requirements from Excel into work items and refresh updates from work items back into Excel. 

If you don't have Office Excel, install it. For Azure DevOps Server 2019, you'll need Office 2013 or a later version. The Excel plugin for Azure DevOps Server is installed by installing one of the latest editions of Visual Studio or the Azure DevOps Server Standalone Office Integration installer. Azure DevOps Server Standalone Office Integration supports connecting to Azure DevOps Server from Excel, Microsoft Project, and the PowerPoint-based storyboard tool.

If you don't intend to install Visual Studio but need Office integration, download and install Azure DevOps Server Standalone Office Integration (free) from https://www.visualstudio.com/downloads/. Once the installation is complete, the Excel Plugin will show up under the Team ribbon in Excel, as shown in the following screenshot:

If you don't see the Team ribbon, perform the following steps to enable it:

1. Click the File tab in Excel and choose Options.
2.  In the Categories pane, click Add-ins, and verify that Team Foundation Add-in shows up in the Disabled Application Add-ins section.
3. In the manage box, select disabled items and click Go.
4. Select the Azure DevOps Server Add-in and click Enable. Finally, exit the dialog by clicking Close.

Now that we have the Azure DevOps Sever excel plugin installed, in this section we'll learn how to use it. 

Start by performing the following steps:

1. Launch Excel and start with a blank sheet. Navigate to the Team ribbon.   
2. Click on New List to connect to your project in TFS. 

3. If you are connecting to Azure DevOps Server from Excel for the first time, you will have to add your server details to the list of recognized servers. The steps for this are shown in the following screenshot:

4. Select the PartsUnlimited team project and click Connect:

5. When asked which type of work item list you want to create, choose Input list. An Input list gives you a blank template that is linked to your team project:

6. Your worksheet will now be bound to your team project as a flat list. What this means is that you can add work items to the team project from the worksheet or add work items to the worksheet from the team project. Fill out the details of the work items you want to add and their work item type. The Excel plugin defaults the list type to flat, but you can change it to a tree list if you wish. A tree list allows you to create and view hierarchically linked work items, like so:

7. Publish the changes by clicking the Publish button from the Team ribbon.

To validate whether the changes have been synchronized to Azure DevOps Server, launch the web portal in a browser, and navigate to the work hub in the PartsUnlimited team project. The newly added work item should show up under the features backlog, as shown in the following screenshot:

Follow these tips to keep your work in sync:

• When you first open a saved worksheet, use the Refresh button in Excel on the Team ribbon to download the latest data from the data store
• Enter data for additional fields by adding columns to the worksheet using the Choose Column icon in Excel on the Team ribbon
• To avoid data conflicts, publish your additions and modifications often
• To prevent loss of data before you publish or refresh, save your workbook periodically

The Azure DevOps Server Excel plugin uses the Azure DevOps Server REST APIs, which are wrapped into an SDK. This allows for safe and secure bulk editing of work items. The plugin supports two-way updates, and changes that are made to work items in Azure DevOps Server web portal can be refreshed back into Excel by clicking the Refresh button. Refreshing the data does not overwrite any calculations or formatting that you may have applied to the worksheet. If you spend a lot of time using Microsoft Project, you'll be excited to know that the Azure DevOps Server plugin can also be used from Microsoft Project.

The marketplace features the Azure DevOps Open in Excel extension (https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=blueprint.vsts-open-work-items-in-excel). This is a free extension that was created by Microsoft DevLabs, and adds the option of opening work items in Excel from various access points, such as work item queries, backlogs, and selective work items:

Another noticeable extension in the marketplace is the Requirements Integrator (https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=jgarverick.RequirementsIntegrator). This is an open source extension that was created by Microsoft MVP Josh Garverick, which introduces the capability of mapping external requirements into Azure DevOps Server to create a traceability matrix with work items. This extension introduces a new sub-tab called Requirements in the work hub, which allows you to import external requirements into TFS using a predefined Excel template:

The extension allows you to do the following:

• Manage requirements to work item mapping
• Display a sprint view that shows the requirements covered by a sprint
• Display a traceability matrix, including gaps, for requirements that are imported and mapped to WIs
• Restrict import usage to non-CMMI process templates
• Requirement visualization (visual traceability)
• Export requirement information to Excel 

I encourage you to look at the marketplace (https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/) as it has a range of extensions that enhance the experience of planning, tracking, and managing work items. While this extension isn't necessarily a replacement for the Excel add-in, you'll find that it enhances the work planning, tracking, and management experience.

To provide a fresher, more modern experience in tracking work, the old and clunky work item form has been given a makeover. Along with the noticeable responsive form layout, the new form introduces a lot of new features. In this recipe, we'll see how to put the newly added work item discussion control to work. The following screenshot shows the new work item form:

It's fair to say that projects are tracked using work items, while discussions are tracked using email. Often, decisions aren't reflected back into work items, which results in work needing to be done later. The new work item form makes it really easy to stay on track by letting you have conversations within a work item. The discussions control provides a rich editor, giving you the ability to associate images, mention people, and link work items. The power of work item search and the social features of alerts and notification follow work items, and my work items make it really easy to stay involved and informed. 

Before we dig into work item discussions, let's see how easy it is to populate your team project with sample data. The sample data widget, which can be found at https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ms-devlabs.SampleDataWidget, is a free extension that was developed by Microsoft DevLabs, and it makes it really easy to generate demo work items in bulk. This extension also provides an option to generate and set up work item data inline with the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), giving you a great jump-start into implementing SAFe with TFS.

Once you've installed the extension, navigate to the dashboard in the PartsUnlimited project web portal. Add the sample data widget to the dashboard, select Getting started in the dropdown, and click Create. Once this awesome extension has completed its magic, you'll see your team project become populated with new features, user stories, and active iterations—all ready for you to start playing with everything they offer.

Let's perform the following steps:

1. Launch the PartsUnlimited web portal and select the Search work items control:

2. In the work item search box, type add. The keyword add is searched across all work items in the team project.  The search results are summarized in the left-hand side panel. The search results are ordered by relevance, and can be reordered using a different field:

3. The work item search understands the work item schema, which allows it to support complex work item search queries. For example, by changing the search query to add and s:active and t:feature, we can filter the results down to the work item type feature and set the work item status to Active:

4. To search for work items that need review, change the search query to a new tag: needs review. The new follow functionality allows you to subscribe to work items and be notified when changes are made to them. Click on the Follow button to follow one or more work items:

5. Double-click the first work item in the search result and navigate to the Discussion section in the work item form. Here, you can add a comment, use # to link a work item, or use @ to mention a person:

6. Click Save to persist the changes. The linked work item is automatically linked to the work item as a related work item. This mention triggers a notification workflow, and an email is sent out to the mentioned individual, in addition to others who are following this work item. You can click Maximize Discussion to enter an expanded discussion view:

7. My favorite feature is being able to paste images into the work item form without having to save them and attach them manually. In your discussions, you can use rich formatting, links, images, and more:

 It is super easy for you to access artifacts that are most important for you. The redesigned account page has a personalized experience that shows the Projects, Favorites, Work, and Pull Requests you care about. You can go to one place and quickly find everything you need to do and care about. 

Start your day with the My work items page to be able to easily access all the work items that have been assigned to you across all projects. It also lets you check and access the status of all the work items that you are following, those you have been mentioned in, or those that you have recently viewed:

Work item search allows you to search across all projects. You can scope the search and drill down into an area path of choice. You can easily search across all work item fields, including custom fields, which enables more natural searches. The snippet view indicates where matches were found. Quick inline search filters let you refine work items in seconds. The dropdown list of suggestions helps you complete your search faster. For example, a search such as AssignedTo: Tarun WorkItemType: Bug State: Active finds all active bugs assigned to a user named Tarun. 

One of the design principles of the work item search team has been to keep the search actionable. The work item search interface integrates with familiar controls in the Work hub, giving you the ability to view, edit, comment, share, and much more, right from the search results. 

Notifications help you and your teams stay informed about activity in your team projects. TFS 2018 introduced a new experience that makes it easier to manage what notifications you and your teams receive. Users have their own account-level experience for managing notification settings (available via the Profile menu).

This view lets you manage personal subscriptions and also view subscriptions that have been created by team administrators for all the projects in your account:

You can set up new notifications by clicking on the New subscription link. This new notification experience gives you access to WIQL so that you can create filter criteria for specific conditions. In addition to this, you can set up notifications to be delivered to other email addresses and soap endpoints:

You, as an individual, also have the option of unsubscribing and opting out of a team or OOB notification subscription. Whether you are an administrator or not, toggling a shared team subscription from your notification settings only impacts you and not other team members.

The TFS marketplace features the Activity Feed extension, available at https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=davesmits.VSTSActivityFeed. This free extension, created by Dave Smits, brings in the capability of viewing what's happening in your team project at a glance in one place. The extension is available as a dashboard widget, as well as a subpage in the work hub. Activity Feed gives a summary of all recent changes in work items, commits, pull requests, and builds. It tells who changed a task, who logged a bug, and who committed code. The extension supports configuration, so you can decide to filter out what's not relevant or simply configure which backlogs the work updates should be published from:

The team rooms functionality has been completely removed in TFS 2018 https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/devops/2017/01/04/deprecation-of-the-team-rooms-in-team-services-and-tfs/. However, the introduction of social experiences built around you, including the search, follow, and comment features in work items and the activity feed extension, provides a far more engaging solution. 

Requirements come in all shapes and sizes! While many teams can work with a flat list of items, sometimes, it helps to group related items into a hierarchical structure. Perhaps you would like to start with a big picture and break it down into smaller deliverables. Or, perhaps you've got an existing backlog and now need to organize it. No matter your starting point, TFS offers you hierarchical backlogs so that you can bring more order to your backlog. Two backlog levels are enabled in each team project by default—in the Agile process template, it's features and stories. An additional backlog level—Epic—can be enabled optionally. The user story backlog level is used for sprint planning; the feature backlog level and the epic backlog level, also known as the Portfolio backlog, can have multiple uses. This is shown in the following diagram for ease of understanding:

Use your backlogs in conjunction with portfolio backlogs to plan your project and do the following:

• Manage a portfolio of features that are supported by different development and management teams
• Group items into a release train
• Minimize size variability of your deliverables by breaking down a large feature into smaller backlog items

With portfolio backlogs, you can quickly add and group items into a hierarchy, drill up or down within the hierarchy, reorder and reparent items, and filter hierarchical views. 

TFS 2018 allows you to add one-level child links to work items with ease. However, when you are in a planning discussion, you sometimes want to rapidly create sub items at different levels of work item hierarchies. The TFS marketplace features the decompose extension (https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=cschleiden.decompose), a free extension that was created by Christopher Schleiden, which allows you to quickly break down work items into sub-hierarchies. Appropriately named, this extension makes decomposing work items into sub-items very easy, and very useful during team discussion and planning sessions. Once you've installed this extension, you'll see the Decompose work item option in the work item context menu and the backlog and boards work item context menu: 

Let's perform the following steps:

1. Launch the PartsUnlimited team portal and navigate to the work hub. 
2. To configure the team settings, click the gear icon under the velocity chart in the backlog view. The team settings window has several options to configure and style backlogs and boards, which we'll cover in later recipes:

3. In the Settings window, under the General section, click Backlogs. This presents the backlog levels that are available to your team. This setting is configurable per team. Adding or removing a backlog level will only affect the team for which it's being done to, and not every team in a team project. To add the Epics backlog level for the PartsUnlimited team, simply check the Epics backlog level and click Save:

4. Open an epic from the Epics backlog and choose Decompose from the context menu. Hit Enter to add a feature and indent to create the user story; indent again to create the task. Once you have decomposed the work item, click Create to save your changes:  

The newly created work items are linked to each other. You can see this linking by expanding the linked work items in the Epics backlog:

With the growth in work item usage, there will be growth in the work item dependency tree. I usually find a list of dependencies meaningful until the depth of 3, after which I hope I could just visualize the dependency through a graph. Luckily, the TFS marketplace features the Work Item Visualization extension (https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ms-devlabs.WorkItemVisualization), which is a free extension that was developed by Microsoft DevLabs. It allows you to visualize work item dependencies from within the work item form. The unique selling point of this extension is that it allows you to see how work items relate to each other, as well as code, tests, test results, builds, and external artifacts. You can even drill into your commits to explore the changeset details. Among other things, the extension also allows you to annotate and export visualizations, an example of which is provided by the following screenshot:

Story mapping is a popular way of visualizing the product backlog with Agile teams. Story mapping is a top-down approach of requirement gathering. Story mapping starts from an overarching vision. A vision is achieved via goals. Goals are reached by completing activities. To complete an activity, users needs to perform tasks. And these tasks can be transformed into user stories for software development. Story maps are traditionally created using sticky notes on walls or whiteboards, and have proven to be popular among Agile development teams. However, these traditional storyboards are not without their disadvantages: walls are not transportable and the physical nature of these maps means they are only temporary.

The TFS marketplace features the SpecMap extension (https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=techtalk.specmap), which was created by TechTalk software, and gives you the ability to create digital storyboards. This extension allows you to use existing work items in the system, which means that SpecMap goes further than just depicting story maps: creating a story map in SpecMap helps you plan iterations in TFS and structure your backlog items in the process. The following screenshot depicts a story map of the PartsUnlimited iOS feature team, who are identifying the user journey for the new iOS application that they are creating for both free and paid users: