Add a Work Item Type to a Process Template

A work item type defines the rules, fields, states, and transitions for an item of work that will be tracked for a team project, such as bugs, user stories, and tasks. For example, the process template for MSF for Agile Software Development defines the following types of work items: bug, issue, shared steps, test case, task, and user story. These are defined, respectively, in the following XML definition files under the Work Item Tracking folder in the TypeDefinitions folder: Bug.xml, Issue.xml, SharedSteps.xml, TestCase.xml, Task.xml and UserStory.xml.

Customize or create type definition files in the TypeDefinitions folder. For more information about how to create or customize work item types, see Customizing Project Tracking Data, Forms, Workflow, and Other Objects.

To include work item types in the process template, you must create one or more tasks in the workitems.xml file. Use the WORKITEMTYPE element to specify the correct type definition file. The filename attribute is a relative path of the work item type definition file.

<WORKITEMTYPE fileName="WorkItem Tracking\TypeDefinitions\filename.xml"/>

The following example shows how to specify a task that creates all six work item types that are defined in the process template for MSF for Agile Software Development.

  <task id="WITs" name="WorkItemType definitions" plugin="Microsoft.ProjectCreationWizard.WorkItemTracking" completionMessage="Work item types created">
    <dependencies>
      <dependency taskId="LinkTypes" />
    </dependencies>
    <taskXml>
      <WORKITEMTYPES>
        <WORKITEMTYPE fileName="WorkItem Tracking\TypeDefinitions\Bug.xml" />
        <WORKITEMTYPE fileName="WorkItem Tracking\TypeDefinitions\SharedStep.xml" />
        <WORKITEMTYPE fileName="WorkItem Tracking\TypeDefinitions\Task.xml" />
        <WORKITEMTYPE fileName="WorkItem Tracking\TypeDefinitions\TestCase.xml" />
        <WORKITEMTYPE fileName="WorkItem Tracking\TypeDefinitions\UserStory.xml" />
        <WORKITEMTYPE fileName="WorkItem Tracking\TypeDefinitions\Issue.xml" />
      </WORKITEMTYPES>
    </taskXml>
  </task>

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