How does importing a work item type definition for a TFS project impact other projects in the collection

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I am using TFS 2015 on premises and I am trying to understand the scoping of process templates and the work item type definitions within them. I have been reading a number of the reference documents provided by Microsoft, yet I still find myself confused.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/vsts/work/work-items/guidance/manage-process-templates?view=vsts

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/vsts/work/customize/reference/process-templates/customize-process?view=vsts

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/vsts/work/work-items/guidance/work-item-field?view=vsts#what-is-a-field-how-are-field-names-used

The above articles clearly suggest that the work item fields are at the project collection level (emphasis added by me):

Most process template components that you customize will affect only the team project that you create by using the process template. The exceptions to this rule are global lists, link types, and work item fields. These objects are defined for a team project collection.

Why then when I import a work item type definition, do I specify a project within a collection to import it to? The importwitd documentation here states I am importing my changes to a particular project:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/vsts/work/customize/reference/witadmin/witadmin-import-export-manage-wits?view=tfs-2018&viewFallbackFrom=vsts

importwitd: Imports work item types from an XML definition file into a team project on a server that runs Team Foundation Server.

I must be failing to understand some of the intricacies here, but I cant seen to wrap my head around the impact radius of making work item type definition changes.

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tfs-2015tfs-workitem

2 Answers

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Your team project contains 14 or more work item types (WITs), based on the process (Agile, Scrum, or CMMI) used to create the team project. A WIT is the object you use to track different types of work. When you modify a WIT, you should have known which WIT under which team project you want to modify, and export it:

witadmin exportwitd /collection:CollectionURL /p:ProjectName /n:TypeName /f:"DirectoryPath/FileName.xml"

Work item fields defined for work item types that are defined for a team project collection. Changes that you make on work item field attributes will apply to all team projects within the team project collection. If you have installed TFS power tools, you could check Work item field explorer there:

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Also, you could use command to list the fields:

witadmin listfields /collection:CollectionURL /n:RefName [/unused]
0
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Work item process template changes are scoped to a single team project. If you have multiple team projects and you change a work item type definition, you have to import it into all of the team projects where you want the change to be visible.