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Azure DevOps Services | Azure DevOps Server | Azure DevOps Server 2022 | Azure DevOps Server 2020
Visual Studio 2019 | Visual Studio 2022
This article shows how to view, filter, and create work items (user stories, issues, bugs, tasks). It covers the most common ways to add work items: the web portal, Boards/Backlogs/Sprints pages, Visual Studio, and the Azure DevOps CLI.
What you'll learn:
- How to open and navigate the Work items page.
- How to filter and save personal views.
- How to add work items from different entry points (web, boards, Visual Studio, CLI).
To create test cases and link them to user stories, see Add, run, and update inline tests and Create test plans and test suites.
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For enhanced productivity across your Azure DevOps workflow, use the Azure DevOps MCP Server to enable AI assistance with your project data. Get intelligent insights for daily standups, sprint planning, code reviews, project reporting, pull request analysis, and work item management—all through natural language queries to your AI assistant. For more information and installation instructions, see the Azure DevOps MCP Server overview.
Prerequisites
| Category | Requirements |
|---|---|
| Permissions | - To view, follow, and edit work items: View work items in this node and Edit work items in this node permissions set to Allow. By default, the Contributors group has these permissions. For more information, see Set work tracking permissions. - To add tags to work items: Project-level Create new tag definition permission set to Allow. By default, the Contributors group has this permission. |
| Access levels | - Project member. - To add new tags to work items or to view or follow pull requests: At least Basic access. - To view or follow work items: At least Stakeholder access. For more information, see About access levels. - All project members, including members in the Readers group, can send emails containing work items. |
Note
- Provide Stakeholder access to members who want to contribute to the discussion and review progress. These members typically don't contribute to code, but want to view work items, backlogs, boards, and dashboards.
- By default, all Contributors and Stakeholders in public projects can add new and existing tags. In private projects, Stakeholders can only add existing tags. To control the ability to create new tags, set the Create tag definition permission at the project level. For more information, see Change project-level permissions.
Note
- Provide Stakeholder access to members who want to contribute to the discussion and review progress. These are typically members who don't contribute to code, but want to view work items, backlogs, boards, and dashboards.
Open the Work items page
There are three common ways to open the Work items page.
From your project, choose Boards > Work items.
Note
The available work item types depend on the process chosen when the project was created—Agile, Basic, Scrum, or CMMI. Backlog items might be called user stories, issues, product backlog items, or requirements depending on the process.
For more information, see About processes and process templates.
View work items
Use the Work items page to quickly find items assigned to you, items you're following, items that mention you, and more. Each pivot has interactive filters and the page remembers your filter settings per pivot.
Use the pivot menu to select a focus (for example, "Assigned to me") and then apply filters to narrow results.
- Assigned to me: Items assigned to you (sorted by last update). Items in the Removed state are excluded.
- Following: Items you're following.
- Mentioned: Items mentioning you (last 30 days).
- My activity: Items you recently viewed or updated.
- My team(s): Items your team members recently viewed or updated.
- Assigned to me: Items assigned to you (sorted by last update).
- Following: Items you're following.
- Mentioned: Items mentioning you (last 30 days).
- My activity: Items you recently viewed or updated.
- My team(s): Items your team members recently viewed or updated.
Other pivots:
- **Recently updated—items updated recently in the project.
- **Recently completed—items completed/closed in the project.
- Recently created — items created in the last 30 days.
You can sort by any column (use Column Options). For more, see Change column options.
Filter to create personal views
Filter each work item pivot view by entering a keyword or using fields like work item type (Types), State, Area Path, and Tags. The page remembers your filters for each pivot, providing personalized views across all pivots. For more information, see Filter backlogs, boards, queries, and plans.
Add work items
You can add work items from the Work Items page or from a Boards, Backlogs, or Sprints page in the web portal, from Visual Studio, or by using the Azure DevOps CLI.
Add a work item from the Work items page
Note
New work items are assigned the last Area Path and Iteration Path selected by the user.
Select New Work Item and choose the work item type from the drop-down menu. For example, here we choose User Story.
Tip
Work items you add are automatically assigned to the current team's area and iteration paths. To change the team context, see Switch project or team focus. Enter a title and save the work item. You must save it before changing its initial default state.
Add tags to any work item to filter backlogs, queries, and work item lists. Users with Basic access can create new tags, while users with Stakeholder access can only add existing tags.
Add a work item from a Boards, Backlogs, or Sprints page
Do the following steps to add a work item from your Boards, Backlogs, or Sprints page.
From your Boards, Backlogs, or Sprints page, choose the
plus icon or + New Work Item. The following example shows creating a work item from a board.
Note
Depending on the process chosen when the project was created—Agile, Basic, Scrum, or CMMI—the types of work items you can create are different. For example, backlog items might be called user stories (Agile), issues (Basic) product backlog items (Scrum), or requirements (CMMI). All four are similar: they describe the customer value to deliver and the work to be performed.
For more information, see About processes and process templates.
Select a work item type from the dropdown menu, enter a title, and then select Enter. From a board, for example, you can also select Add to top. Before you can change the state from its initial default, save it.
You can add tags to any work item to filter backlogs and queries.
Added work items are automatically scoped to your team's default area path and iteration path. To change the team context, see Switch project or team focus.
Create as many work items as you need of the type you need to track the work you want to manage.
Open a view as a query
From the web portal, you can open any view, filtered view, or selected set of work items as a query. Choose Open in Queries or the Open selected items in Queries option from the context menu.
Queries provide the following features and more:
- Edit one or more fields of several work items
- Add or remove tags from several work items
- Change the work item type
- Delete work items
- Apply work item templates
For more information, see Bulk modify work items. For more information about queries, see Use the query editor to list and manage queries and Query fields, operators, and macros.
Use work items page controls
Use the following three controls to manage your views in the web portal.
| Control | Function |
|---|---|
 |
View/hide completed items |
 |
Turn filtering On/Off |
 /  |
Enter or exit full screen mode |