Planning, Ranking, and Priorities Field Reference

Article
04/08/2014

You use planning, ranking, and priority fields to specify which work the team should complete first. By ranking and prioritizing work items, all team members gain an understanding of the relative importance of the work that they must accomplish. Ranking and priority fields are used to build several reports.

You rank and prioritize work items when you create the product backlog.

In this topic

Tracking fields that appear on work Item forms
Work item fields and work item types

Tracking fields that appear on work item forms

The following table describes the fields that you can use to plan and prioritize work and that are common to all default process templates. For information about data types and default field attributes, see Working with Work Item Fields.

Field name	Description	Reference name	Data type	Default value of the reportable type attribute	Default value of the index attribute
Priority	A subjective rating of the bug, issue, task, or test case as it relates to the business. You can specify the following values: 1: Product cannot ship without the successful resolution of the work item, and it should be addressed as soon as possible. 2: Product cannot ship without the successful resolution of the work item, but it does not need to be addressed immediately. 3: Resolution of the work item is optional based on resources, time, and risk.	Microsoft.VSTS.Common.Priority	Integer	Dimension	False
Severity	A subjective rating of the impact of a bug on the project. You can specify the following values: 1 - Critical 2 - High 3 - Medium 4 - Low	Microsoft.VSTS.Common.Severity	String	Dimension	False
Stack Rank	A subjective rating of the user story, task, issue, or bug compared to other work items of the same type. An item that is assigned a lower number should be fixed before an item that is assigned a higher number. (Agile and CMMI process templates) Note The sequence of items on the product backlog page is determined according to where you have added the items or dragged the items on the page. As you drag items, a background process updates this field which is assigned to type="Order" in the CommonConfiguration file. See Customize the Backlog and Board Pages Using Process Configuration.	Microsoft.VSTS.Common.StackRank	Double	Dimension	False

Priority

A subjective rating of the bug, issue, task, or test case as it relates to the business. You can specify the following values:

1: Product cannot ship without the successful resolution of the work item, and it should be addressed as soon as possible.
2: Product cannot ship without the successful resolution of the work item, but it does not need to be addressed immediately.
3: Resolution of the work item is optional based on resources, time, and risk.

Microsoft.VSTS.Common.Priority

Integer

Dimension

False

Severity

A subjective rating of the impact of a bug on the project. You can specify the following values:

1 - Critical
2 - High
3 - Medium
4 - Low

Microsoft.VSTS.Common.Severity

String

Dimension

False

Stack Rank

A subjective rating of the user story, task, issue, or bug compared to other work items of the same type. An item that is assigned a lower number should be fixed before an item that is assigned a higher number. (Agile and CMMI process templates)

Note

The sequence of items on the product backlog page is determined according to where you have added the items or dragged the items on the page. As you drag items, a background process updates this field which is assigned to type="Order" in the CommonConfiguration file. See Customize the Backlog and Board Pages Using Process Configuration.

Microsoft.VSTS.Common.StackRank

Double

Dimension

False

Scrum-specific fields

The following table describes the fields that you can use to plan and prioritize work when you use the work item types provided with the Visual Studio Scrum process template.

Field name	Description	Reference name	Data type	Default value of the reportable type attribute	Default value of the index attribute
Acceptance Criteria	A description of the criteria to be met before the bug or product backlog item can be closed. Before work begins on a bug or product backlog item, the criteria for customer acceptance should be described as clearly as possible. Conversations between the team and customers to define the acceptance criteria will help ensure that your team understands your customers’ expectations. The acceptance criteria can be used as the basis for acceptance tests so that you can more effectively evaluate whether an item has been satisfactorily completed.	Microsoft.VSTS.Common.AcceptanceCriteria	HTML	None	False
Backlog Priority	A subjective rating of the bug, product backlog item, or task as it relates to the business. Note The sequence of items on the product backlog page is determined according to where you have added the items or dragged the items on the page. As you drag items, a background process updates this field which is assigned to type="Order" in the CommonConfiguration file. See Customize the Backlog and Board Pages Using Process Configuration.	Microsoft.VSTS.Common.BacklogPriority	Double	Detail	False
Blocked	Indicates whether a team member is prevented from making progress toward implementing a task. You can specify Yes or leave it blank.	Microsoft.VSTS.CMMI.Blocked	String	Dimension	False
Business Value	A subjective unit of measure that captures the relative business value of a product backlog item or bug compared to other items of the same type. An item that is assigned a higher number should be considered as having more business value than an item that is assigned a higher number.	Microsoft.VSTS.Common.BusinessValue	Integer	Measure	False
Resolution	Describes how the impediment was resolved.	Microsoft.VSTS.Common.Resolution	HTML	None	False

Agile specific fields

The following table describes the fields that you can use to plan and prioritize work when you use the work item types defined for the Agile process template.

Field name	Description	Reference name	Data type	Default value of the reportable type attribute	Default value of the index attribute
Risk	A subjective rating of the relative uncertainty around the successful completion of a user story. Defined allowed values are: 1 - High 2 - Medium 3 - Low	Microsoft.VSTS.Common.Risk	String	Dimension	False

Risk

A subjective rating of the relative uncertainty around the successful completion of a user story.

Defined allowed values are:

1 - High
2 - Medium
3 - Low

Microsoft.VSTS.Common.Risk

String

Dimension

False

Formal or CMMI-specific fields

The following table describes the fields that you can use to plan and prioritize work when you use the work item types provided with the MSF formal or CMMI process template.

Field name	Description	Reference name	Data type	Default value of the reportable type attribute	Default value of the index attribute
Blocked	Indicates whether a team member is prevented from making progress toward implementing a requirement or task or resolving a bug, change request, or risk. If an issue has been opened to track a blocking problem, a link should be made to the issue. You can specify Yes or No.	Microsoft.VSTS.CMMI.Blocked	String	Dimension	False
Committed	Indicates whether the requirement is committed in the project or not. You can specify Yes or No. Note You can specify this field only for requirements.	Microsoft.VSTS.CMMI.Committed	String	None	False
Escalate	Indicates whether the issue is affecting the critical path of the project plan. You can specify Yes or No. Note You can specify this field only for issues.	Microsoft.VSTS.CMMI.Escalate	String	None	False
Triage	Indicates the type of triage decision that is pending for the work item. You use this field when the work item is in the Proposed state. You can specify one of the following values: Pending (default) More Info Info Received Triaged Note You can specify this field only for requirements, tasks, change requests, bugs, and issues.	Microsoft.VSTS.Common.Triage	String	Dimension	False

Work item fields and work item types

You can use the tables provided below to look up which fields are tracked for the main work item types provided with each of the default process templates for Team Foundation Server.

Scrum

The following table indicates which data fields you can specify for work item types that are provided with the Visual Studio Scrum process template.

Field Name	Product Backlog Item	Bug	Task	Impediment
Acceptance Criteria
Backlog Priority
Blocked
Business Value
Effort
Resolution

Agile

The following table indicates which data fields you can specify for work item types that are provided with the MSF Agile process template.

Field Name	User Story	Task	Issue	Bug
Due Date
Priority
Risk
Severity
Stack Rank
Story Points

Formal or CMMI

The following table indicates which data fields you can specify for work item types that are provided with the MSF formal process template.

Field Name	Requirement	Task	Bug	Change Request	Issue	Risk
Blocked
Committed
Escalate
Priority
Probability
Stack Rank
Severity
Triage

Planning, Ranking, and Priorities Field Reference

Tracking fields that appear on work item forms

Scrum-specific fields

Agile specific fields

Formal or CMMI-specific fields

Work item fields and work item types

Scrum

Agile

Formal or CMMI

See Also

Concepts

Additional resources