Planning, Ranking, and Priorities

  • Article

You use planning, ranking, and priority fields to specify which work the team should complete first. If you rank user stories, tasks, bugs, and issues, 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 review the backlog for a product or an iteration. For more information, see Rank the Product Backlog and Iteration Backlog.

The following table indicates which data fields you can specify for each type of work item that is provided with the process template for Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF) for Agile Software Development v5.0.

Field Name

User Story

Task

Issue

Bug

Test Case

Shared Step

Due Date

 Not supported Not supported check mark Not supported Not supported Not supported

Priority

 Not supported check mark check mark check mark check mark check mark

Risk

 check mark Not supported Not supported Not supported Not supported Not supported

Severity

 Not supported Not supported Not supported check mark Not supported Not supported

Stack Rank

 check mark check mark check mark check mark Not supported Not supported

Story Points

 check mark Not supported Not supported Not supported Not supported Not supported

The following table describes the fields that you can use to plan and prioritize work and that are based on MSF for Agile Software Development v5.0. 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

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.

Microsoft.VSTS.Common.Rank

Double

Dimension

False

Story Points

A subjective unit of measure that captures the size of a user story. If you assign more points to a user story, you indicate that more work is required to implement it.

Microsoft.VSTS. Scheduling.StoryPoints

Double

Dimension

True

Risk

A subjective rating of the relative uncertainty around the successful completion of the user story. You can specify the following values:

  • 1 - High

  • 2 - Medium

  • 3 - Low

Microsoft.VSTS.Common.Risk

String

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

Due Date

The forecasted date for an issue to be completed. This field is applicable only to issue work items.

Microsoft.VSTS.Scheduling.DueDate

DateTime

Dimension

False

See Also

Concepts

Using System Fields and Fields Defined by the MSF Process Templates

Finding Bugs, Tasks, and Other Work Items

Query Fields, Operators, Values, and Variables

Other Resources

Work Items and Workflow (Agile)

Work Item Fields (Agile)