Adding New Work Item Types in TFS 2012

Question

I am new to TFS 2012 and would like some help in customizing a few things. We currently have the TFS setup with the template " MSF for Agile Software Development". This was setup before I started working with TFS. I have done some research online, but I have not been able to get answers for my questions. I was hoping someone could help me customize our TFS a little. Some questions:

1. How do I add a new Work Item Type? We currently have Bug, Issue, User Story and Task. I would like to add Feature and Product Backlog. I would like to be able to create Product Backlog Items and link the Tasks and User Stories to them.

2. How do I add different Work Item Types the Kanban Board?

Answer 1

It's a bit much to answer all of your question in a short and concise StackOverflow answer, but here are the starting points:

• How to customize Work Item Types
• Create s Work Item Type
• Add bugs to the task board or backlog
• Customize work tracking objects to support your team's processes
• witAdmin: Administering Objects for Tracking Work Items

Note: Many of the customization you want to do come out of the box with TFS 2013. It's probably a lot less work and easier to maintain to just upgrade than to introduce all of this customization.

Answer 2

See below link on how to create new work item type.

Modify or add a custom work item type: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh409273.aspx

But it looks like you don't need new work item type here because work item type "Feature" is already available in TFS 2012. See below link. The link is for 2013 but if you switch to 2012 you will see feature there as well.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd997897.aspx

Product backlog item(pbi) is a term used in Scrum so if you use scrum template you will see pbi instead of user story. So user story is your equivalent to pbi.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms400752.aspx