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Shared Queries (Agile)

You can use the work item queries that are provided with MSF for Agile Software Development to find the bugs, tasks, and other work items for which you must take action. Each query is designed to find only those work items that are defined for the team project from which they are accessed.

You can open these queries from Team Explorer by expanding your team project, expanding Work Items, and then expanding Shared Queries.

Note

To access work item queries, you must have the appropriate permissions. For more information, see Organize and Set Permissions on Work Item Queries and Team Foundation Server Permissions.

In this topic

  • Quick Tips for Managing Work By Using Team Queries

  • Building and Maintaining the Product Backlog

  • Planning an Iteration

  • Finding Tasks with Summary Values

  • Workbook Queries

Team Queries in Team Explorer

MSF Agile team queries list in Team Explorer

Quick Tips for Managing Work By Using Team Queries

If you are new to Team Foundation and shared queries, you can review the following tips for an overview of how you can manage work more effectively by using team queries:

  • You can find work items that are assigned to you by opening one of the "My" shared queries. To open a query, right-click it, and then click Open or View Results.

  • You can find work items that are neither resolved nor closed by using any of the Active or Open team queries. For example, the Open Work Items query lists all work items, except for shared steps, that are not closed.

  • You can modify any query by adding criteria to focus on a product area, an iteration, or another field that is defined for the types of work items that you want to find. To modify a query, right-click it, and then click Edit. For more information, see Specify Query Filter Criteria.

  • You can open any query in Office Excel and Office Project, where you can modify the query and publish your changes to the database for tracking work items. For more information, see Create, Open, and Modify Work Items Using Microsoft Excel.

For more information about how to work with work item queries, see Find Bugs, Tasks, and Other Work Items.

Building and Maintaining the Product Backlog

Product owners can use the team queries that are defined in the following table to plan and track user stories that compose the product backlog.

Shared Query

Description

Product Backlog

Lists all user stories that are not closed and sorts them by rank.

Planning an Iteration

The following table describes the team queries that are listed under the Iteration 1 folder. These queries find work items that are assigned to the specified iteration. As you plan additional iterations, you can modify these queries to specify a different iteration and then save them to the Iteration 2 or Iteration 3 folders.

Note

The project administrator for each team project defines area and iteration paths for that project so that the team can track progress by those designations. For more information, see Create and Modify Areas and Iterations.

Shared Query

Description

Active Bugs

Lists all active bugs and sorts them by rank, priority, and severity.

Active Tasks

Lists all active tasks and sorts them by rank, priority, and severity.

Bug Triage

Lists all active bugs that are not assigned to a team member.

The Triage Workbook references this query. For more information, see Triage Workbook.

Completed Tasks

Lists all tasks that have been closed and sorts them by rank, priority, and severity.

Iteration Backlog

Lists all user stories and their linked tasks and sorts the stories by rank and priority.

Open Issues

Lists all issues under the specified iteration path that are not closed and any tasks that are linked to the issues and then sorts the issues by rank and priority.

The Issues Workbook references this query. For more information, see Issues Workbook.

Open Test Cases

Lists all test cases that are not closed and sorts them by priority.

Open User Stories

Lists all active user stories and sorts them by their stack rank.

Resolved Bugs

Lists all resolved bugs and sorts them by rank, priority, and severity.

User Stories

Lists all user stories that are not closed and sorts them by priority and then ID,

User Stories without Test Cases

Lists all user stories that do not have a link to a test case. Stories are sorted by ID.

Finding Tasks with Summary Values

The Work Items With Summary Values team query, which is located in the Troubleshooting folder, lists all tasks that have child tasks and that contain non-zero values in the Remaining Work or Completed Work fields. This query is designed to find tasks that report work effort that is already accounted for in their child tasks. For the hours to be counted only once, summary tasks should not be assigned any hours. For more information, see Address Inaccuracies Published for Summary Values.

Workbook Queries

The following team Office Excel workbooks are supported by the listed shared query:

  • The Issues workbook uses the Open Issues shared query.

  • The Triage workbook uses the Bug Triage shared query.

Warning

Because these queries support workbooks, if you change these queries, it will affect those workbooks that use them. For more information about workbooks, see Workbooks (Agile).

See Also

Concepts

Find Bugs, Tasks, and Other Work Items

Artifacts (Agile)

Other Resources

Documents (MSF for Agile Software Development v5.0)

MSF for Agile Software Development 6.0