TFS 2010: Change 'Work Item' type from 'Product Backlog Item' to 'Task' - how to?

11
votes

I want to change the type of a 'Work Item' in TFS 2010: I entered a Work Item to the Product Backlog (we're using a Scrum template), and then I entered several 'Child' tasks, but I entered them as 'Product Backlog Items'. I should have entered them as 'Tasks'. How can I change them to appear as Tasks - children of the original 'Work Item'.

A previous question: Change TFS Work Item Type

would suggest that this is not simple. Can anyone help?

2
tfstfs-workitem
possible duplicate of Change TFS Work Item Type – Jehof
The situation remains unchanged, it's still not really possible to change types. juristr.com/blog/2009/08/howto-changing-tfs-workitem-type-from – Betty
At current i believe the the only option is to recreate the items and migrate the data (not counting hacks in sql data), there are migration tools available, not sure if they cover migration to same tfs. And there is always the Tfs api. – drk
Possible duplicate of Change TFS Work Item Type – Simon MᶜKenzie

2 Answers

12
votes

@PortageMonkey's answer in the question you quote contains pretty much what you need.

As noted you cannot directly change the work item type however there is a nice shortcut that may save you a lot of time for these scenarios. It will automatically copy links to change sets, test cases etc.

  1. Right-click on your workitem and select "Create Copy of Work Item"
  2. The following dialog window will pop up where you can then change the work item type for the new item: enter image description here
    enter image description here
    Result: A new work item is created with the new type and the old one automatically added as a link and a comment added to the history area stating the work item ID it was copied from..

So, use this feature to copy them and convert them to task at the same time by choosing "task" in the copy dialog. Once the copy is done, flag original item to "removed".

0
votes

Changing a work item's type is now possible by right-clicking the work item in the web view and choosing Change Type:

Here's the link referenced in the screenshot above.