Support for multiple process templates in VSTS Project?

Question

Management has asked that all teams move to a single Implementation of VSTS (Azure DevOps) and I have a couple of questions that I would like some clarity on.

Please let me know if this statement is accurate: A single instance (Install) of VSTS can support multiple Projects.

If that is true

1. Can you roll up reporting from multiple projects or does it stop at the project barrier?
2. Can a Project support multiple work item templates?

I ask the second question because we have we have multiple teams that do different kinds of work, we would like to have a minimum set of fields for each work item type (Feature, Story, Task, Bug) but that set of fields would be different for the different teams.

using the example of a Task Template,

Can we have a "Base" set of fields that are common to all task templates but each team has additional fields that are unique to them?

Thanks

Answer 1

1. Kind of. Work item queries can cross Team Project boundaries. You can also use the OData API and make any kinds of queries you want in PowerBI. The built-in tooling pretty much assumes that reporting stops at the Team Project level, though.

2. No. A given project has a process template. It can change between versions of the process template (as long as they are derived from the same base).

So to answer your more specific question, let's say you choose the "Agile" template. You can create an inherited process template called "Agile Plus My Awesome Customizations" and add additional fields.

Then you can inherit from that and create process templates with additional fields for your individual teams.

So your process template inheritance structure might look like this:

• Agile
  • Agile Plus My Awesome Customizations
    • Team A's Additional Awesome Customizations
    • Team B's Additional Awesome Customizations
    • Team C's Additional Awesome Customizations

However, each of those process templates would have to be applied to a different team project.