TFS Project not recognizing Work Item changes

Question

I have been tasked with updating the work item templates in Team Foundation Server for my Scrum team.

One such update is to add a field "Type" to the "Bug" work item. However, after doing so, and adding it to the layout, it is not appearing when I create a new work item, yet it shows when I "preview form". How can I get it to appear?

I've already uploaded my changes to the server, imported the changed file, refreshed the server, reopened VS, and checked the XML file to make sure it is properly formatted.

Also, when I create a new "Bug" work item and attempt to save, an error displays, saying that the "Type" field cannot be empty, which is not visible on the template.

Any help would be appreciated.

Answer 1

Work item forms are cached in Visual Studio for performance reasons. Try closing all your work items, refreshing Team Explorer (click the refresh icon at the top of the Team Explorer window) and then opening the work item form again. You should find it now displays as expected.

Additionally, you could look at the work item form in the web interface. You'll probably find that it is already showing correctly. Again, the web page tends to cache the form definitions, so you may need to hit F5 in the web browser to see the updates.

Answer 2

After much tribulation, I have solved my issue, and it was quite simple.

On the "Layout" tab of the Work Item in question, I had to change two settings. First, I had to st "Read-only and Empty Fields" to "False" and then set the field attribute of the field I was adding to "Fieldcontrol".

Everything works as intended now.

Answer 3

I'll share another answer for people who are encountering this issue. In my case, some test cases within a plan/suite reflected the imported changes. Others did not.

I tried a couple different alternatives. After looking at the differences between the two test cases, I noticed that the iterations were different. In fact, the unchanged Test Cases used an iteration from an entirely different Team Project.

At this point it should be noted these suites were Requirement Based. So it looks like we were somehow able to attach test cases from different team projects to the PBIs. This is why the changes weren't reflected, because the TC's were from a different Team Project.

Hope this helps someone else who may have performed a migration or some other crazy stuff like we had.

Answer 4

I had a similar issue after I imported the xml file via WitAdmin, after changing the STate field. Solution was I did not have any Transition items for the item.

Example, I created a new state "On hold"

      <STATES>
...
        <STATE value="Removed" />
        <STATE value="On Hold" />
      </STATES>

Then had to add below in order to see:

        <TRANSITIONS>
...
        <TRANSITION from="Active" to="On Hold">
          <REASONS>
            <DEFAULTREASON value="Waiting for further requirements" />
            <REASON value="Waiting for upgrade" />
            <REASON value="Need more info" />
          </REASONS>
        </TRANSITION>
        <TRANSITION from="New" to="On Hold">
          <REASONS>
            <DEFAULTREASON value="Waiting for further requirements" />
            <REASON value="Waiting for upgrade" />
            <REASON value="Need more info" />
          </REASONS>
        </TRANSITION>
        </TRANSITIONS>