"Bugs are managed with tasks" option in VSTS (Azure DevOps) Boards not working?

Question

I am using the Agile Process on my project and have a question regarding how to handle bugs on my boards. I have been using the option "Bugs are managed with requirements" because this seems to be the only way bugs are visible on the board. When you use this option, bugs appear as separate work items on the board. (essentially they are treated like User Stories) and can be moved around the board independently. Screenshot of my board

This is OK, but I would rather have them act like Tasks and be grouped together with their parent user stories. This is how tasks appear: Screenshot of a story with it's associated tasks

One would think then that selecting "Bugs are managed with tasks" would do this, but it does not. By selecting this option I would expect to see somthing like this mocked up image here: Screen mock of what I would expect bugs to look like using this option

Instead, when I select "Bugs are managed with tasks" they no longer appear on the board at all. screenshot of my board when "Bugs are managed with tasks" is selected

Is this the desired effect of this option? If I select "Bugs are managed with tasks" where do I interact with bugs? Clearly not on the board...

Am I missing something? Again, what I would love to see is this: Screen mock of what I would expect bugs to look like using this option where bugs are truly treated like tasks, and are shown on the user stories cards on the board.

Thanks for any input/insight you may have.

Answer 1

You cannot manage the bugs with requirements and tasks at the same time.

• "Bugs are managed with requirements" makes the Bugs have the same level with PBIs, so bugs appear as separate work items such as PBIs on the board.
• "Bugs are managed with tasks" makes the Bugs have the same level with Tasks, so you can treat Bugs as Tasks in Backlog.

The feature you requested is Enable/Disable annotations (Kanban boards) in Azure DevOps.

Not sure where did you find the screenshot you provided: Screen mock of what I would expect bugs to look like using this option. As far as I know we cannot add "Bug" annotation to cards for now. No such a built-in feature.

However there's already some user voices submitted to suggest the feature, you can go and vote them up to achieve the feature in future release...

• Add annotation for bugs on feature board
• Add a "bug" annotation to feature cards on the features backlog board

Answer 2

This is a bit late so you probably already resolved, but this just in case it's not....

you wrote:

'Instead, when I select "Bugs are managed with tasks" they no longer appear on the board at all. screenshot of my board when "Bugs are managed with tasks" is selected Is this the desired effect of this option? If I select "Bugs are managed with tasks" where do I interact with bugs? Clearly not on the board...'

If bugs are managed at the task level, then it would be quite messy to see all tasks on a PBI board. Instead, you might want to look at the Taskboard (under Sprints). This tracks one level deeper and provides PBI to task item mapping and status.

Regarding the annotation, yes you can add Bugs to the PBI card. From the Board, click on the gear icon and select annotation option Cards.

Answer 3

For anyone else that happens upon this, I'm including a straightforward answer. I realize that at the time the answer was posed, things worked a little differently, but as of 2021 this works (and has for at least the last year or two I would say).

"Bugs are managed with tasks" results in this:

and in the sprint:

However for the above to work, the bug must be a child of the user story.

If the bug is not the child of the user story, the bug will show as unparented, like this.

"Bugs are managed with requirements" results in this:

and in the sprint: