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title titleSuffix description ms.custom ms.service ms.assetid ms.author author monikerRange ms.topic ms.date
Customize a project
Azure DevOps Services
Your guide to configuring and customizing work tracking processes for a project by customizing an inherited process in Azure DevOps.
inherited-process
azure-devops-boards
31CA1DCB-8E3E-4B9E-A64A-D47DF23490A3
chcomley
chcomley
>= azure-devops-2019
tutorial
06/03/2024

Customize a project using an inherited process

[!INCLUDE version-gt-eq-2019]

::: moniker range=">= azure-devops-2020"

Each project is based on a process that defines the building blocks for tracking work. The first project you create uses one of the default processes—Agile, Basic, Scrum, or CMMI.

::: moniker-end

::: moniker range="azure-devops-2019"

Each project is based on a process that defines the building blocks for tracking work. The first project you create uses one of the default processes—Agile, Scrum, or CMMI.

::: moniker-end

You can only customize inherited processes. Any changes you make to the inherited process automatically appears in the projects that use that process.

[!INCLUDE temp]

The sequence for customizing a project is to customize an inherited process, verify your customizations, and then change the process of the project to use that process.

Create an inherited processCustomize the inherited processApply inherited process to  project(s)Refresh and verify changes

Customize a process by adding or modifying a work item type (WIT) that's part of the process.

[!INCLUDE temp]

[!INCLUDE temp]

[!INCLUDE temp]

Add or modify a field

After you create an inherited process, you can customize it.

Locked :::image type="icon" source="media/process/locked-icon.png" border="false"::: fields and inherited :::image type="icon" source="media/process/inherited-icon.png" border="false"::: fields correspond to inherited fields from a system process. You can't customize locked fields, but you can customize some options for inherited fields. You can fully customize fields that you add to a process.

  1. Sign in to your organization (https://dev.azure.com/{yourorganization}).

  2. Select gear icon Organization settings.

    Screenshot showing highlighted Organization settings button.

  3. Select Process > your inherited process > the WIT you want to customize.

  4. To add a field, choose the :::image type="icon" source="media/process/new-field-icon.png" border="false"::: (New Field icon).

    [!div class="mx-imgBorder"]
    Screenshot of Process Work Item Types page, Add a field to a WIT.

    In the resulting dialog, choose the type of field that you want to add. For more information, see the following articles:

  5. To modify an existing field, you can exercise the following choices:

Add or modify a rule for a work item type

Add rules to support specific workflow and business use cases. Rules let you clear the value of a field, copy a value into a field, and apply values based on dependencies between different fields' values.

  1. Select your inherited process and the work item type.
  2. Select Rules > New rule.

[!div class="mx-imgBorder"]
Screenshot showing Process, WIT, Bug, Layout, New custom control.

For more information, see Rules and rule evaluation.

Add or modify work item types

You use different WITs to plan and track different types of work. The main reason you add a custom WIT is to customize the web form and workflow states to meet specific business use cases.

  1. Select your inherited process and the WIT you want to customize.

  2. From the Work Item Types page, choose the :::image type="icon" source="../../../media/icons/blue-add-icon.png" border="false"::: New work item type.

    :::image type="content" source="media/process/cpwit-add-new-wit.png" alt-text="Screenshot showing Process, Inherited process, Work Item Types, Add new work item type.":::

  3. Name the WIT and optionally specify a description, icon, and color. The icon and color you specify appear throughout the web portal, including on the work item form and when associated work items appear on a backlog, boards, query results, and more.

    :::image type="content" source="media/process/cwit-create-wit-ticket.png" alt-text="Screenshot showing Create new work item type dialog.":::

  4. Select Create to save.

    You can now add fields to the WIT, or customize it in the following ways:

Modify the workflow of a work item type

Workflow states allow you to track the status of a work item as it moves from new to completed.

  1. To modify a workflow, choose your inherited process, the WIT, and then the States page.

    [!div class="mx-imgBorder"]
    Process page, Bug WIT, States tab, Add state

  2. You can modify the workflow in the following ways:

Add a custom control

Custom controls provide more functionality to a work item form.

From the Process page, select your inherited process > WIT > Add custom control.

[!div class="mx-imgBorder"]
Screenshot showing Choose your inherited process, the WIT, and then Add custom control sequence.

For more information, see Add extensions and custom controls to a work item type.

Add an extension to a work item type

An extension is an installable unit that contributes new capabilities to your project.

Note

Group and Page extensions automatically get added to all WITs for all processes, both system and inherited. You can hide an extension for selected WITs within an inherited process.

  1. Go to the Visual Studio Marketplace, find an extension, and select Get it free.

    :::image type="content" source="media/process/marketplace-extension-work-item-checklist.png" alt-text="Screenshot showing Marketplace extension, Work item checklist.":::

  2. Choose the organization you want to add it to from the dropdown menu, and then select Install.

    :::image type="content" source="media/process/install-work-item-checklist-extension.png" alt-text="Screenshot showing selected organization and install button.":::

  3. Return to the process and WIT and verify the extension is where you want it. You can drag it to where you want it on the form.

    [!div class="mx-imgBorder"]
    Screenshot showing Group extension on Bug work item form.

Modify the backlog and boards

You can add more WITs to a backlog level or add another portfolio backlog. As shown in the following example, we added a third level portfolio backlog labeled Initiatives, which tracks the custom Initiative WIT. We renamed the product backlog to Stories and Tickets to indicate that we track User stories and Customer tickets on the product backlog.

[!div class="mx-imgBorder"]
Screenshot showing Changes made to the backlog levels.

  1. From the Process page, select your inherited process > Backlog levels.

    [!div class="mx-imgBorder"]
    Screenshot showing Web portal, Admin context, Process page, open Backlog levels.

  2. You can modify the backlog and board configuration in the following ways:

Verify your customization

We recommend that you create a test project and apply your customized inherited process to it to verify the changes you made. All customizations made to a process go into effect immediately on all projects. If you want to stage your changes, you can do that using one of two methods:

Create a test project and copy your customized process

  1. From the Process page, select the … context menu for the process you want to use, and then select New team project.

    ::: moniker range=">= azure-devops-2020"

    [!div class="mx-imgBorder"]
    Create a project from the selected process ::: moniker-end ::: moniker range="azure-devops-2019" [!div class="mx-imgBorder"]
    Create a project from the selected process ::: moniker-end

  2. Enter information into the form, and then select Create. For more information, see Create a project.

  3. From your project, select Boards > Work Items, and then select the customized WIT from the New Work Item dropdown menu. In the following example, we select Bug.

    [!div class="mx-imgBorder"]
    Screenshot showing Work, Work Items Page, Add New Work Item, Bug sequence.

  4. Verify that one or more fields you added appear on the form. The :::image type="icon" source="../../../media/icons/required-icon.png" border="false"::: (exclamation mark) icon indicates the field is required.

Create a test organization and import/export your process

You can also use the following steps to verify the customizations you made to an inherited process.

  1. Create a test organization.
  2. Use the import/export process tool to copy the process to the test organization.
  3. Verify the process customizations in the test organization.
  4. Use the import/export process tool again to import the modified process to the production organization.

Change your project's process

For more information, see Change a project's process.

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