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Modify work items in bulk in Azure Boards

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Azure DevOps Services | Azure DevOps Server 2022 - Azure DevOps Server 2019

Use bulk modify when you need to quickly make the same change to many work items. For example, you might want to change the priority of several bugs or reassign several tasks to the same team member. Use the web portal to quickly modify one or more fields for work items that contain the same value.

Tip

To add work items in bulk or update multiple fields with different values, use CSV Import. You can't complete a bulk add of work items through the web portal.

With bulk modify, you can edit fields and add or remove tags. You can also reassign work or move work to a specific sprint. You can also use bulk modify to change the work item type or move work items to other projects. The options available to you depend on the platform you work from and the permissions assigned to you.

In this article, learn how to do the following tasks:

  • Multi-select work items from a list and open the context menu
  • Edit one or more fields of several work items
  • Assign work from a backlog to a sprint using drag-and-drop
  • Add or remove tags from several work items

Prerequisites

  • Project access: Be a project member.

  • Permissions:

    • Have View work items in this node and Edit work items in this node permissions set to Allow. By default, the Contributors group has these permissions. For more information, see Set work tracking permissions.

    • To add new tags to work items, have at least Basic access and the project-level Create new tag definition permission set to Allow. By default, the Contributors group has this permission.

      Note

      Stakeholders can't add new tags, even if the permission is explicitly set, due to their access level. For more information, see Stakeholder access quick reference.

  • Email work items: All project members, including those in the Readers group, can send emails containing work items.

Supported tasks

Team members who belong to the Contributors group can complete the following tasks. Members provided with Stakeholder access can run multi-select, bulk edit, change type, email, and copy as HTML/copy to clipboard actions. For more information, see Get started as a Stakeholder.

Area

Task

Multi-select work items

Link work items

Bulk edit/update/delete

Copy, clone, change type, move, or email work items

Note

  • You can't perform certain functions on work items whose work item types belong to the hidden types category. This category includes all work items that track tests (such as test cases, shared steps, and shared parameters), code review requests and responses, and feedback requests and responses.
  • You can choose to copy or clone a single work item from a query results list or from the Actions menu of the work item form. You can only perform a clone or copy action for a single work item. Choose Copy work item when you want to create a copy of a work item and change its work item type. Choose Clone when you want to create another instance of the work item without changes to its work item type.
  • You must be a member of the Project Administrators group or be granted explicit permissions to Move work items.


Edit multiple work items in bulk

To start a bulk edit, begin by multi-selecting the work items you want to modify. Select them from query results or the backlog. You can craft your query using the query editor or search box. For more information, see Define a work item query.

Multi-select of work items on the backlog and sprint backlogs works in the same way as multi-select works within query results.

You can use bulk modify by selecting work items from the backlog page or query results list. From the backlog page context menu, change the backlog priority of several items: Change position or Move to iteration. Then, assign them to a team member, move them to a different sprint, or map them to a feature.

The menu options available to you change depending on the platform you work from and whether you work from a backlog page or query results list.

Backlog menu

Screenshot of Backlog multi-select menu.

Query results multi-select menu

Screenshot of Query results multi-select menu.

Select multiple items and open the context menu

To select several items in a sequence, select the first item of the sequence, hold down Shift, and select the last item of the sequence. To select several nonsequential items, hold down Ctrl and select the items to be selected one after the other. You can either drag the selected items to a new position within the backlog or to a different sprint if the Planning side pane is enabled.

To open the context menu, select ( ) or ( ), and then choose the option from the menu.

This example uses the context menu to move several nonsequential items to the current sprint.

Screenshot of Product backlog context menu, where you can move several backlog items to a different iteration.

Tip

Use the backlog Create Query feature to create a query with the backlog items. You can then open the query within the web portal or Excel to perform additional bulk updates.

Reassign work items

With work items selected, open the context menu for any selected item, and reassign all of them. You can assign them to a member of your team or to another sprint or iteration at the same time.

Screenshot of Queries Results page where a context menu can assign work items to a team member.

For more information about the Assign To and Iteration Path fields, see Workflow and board fields and Query by area or iteration path.

Edit one or more fields

To assign or modify several fields, choose Edit from the context menu of one of the selected work items. Enter a value for each field that you want to update.

  1. For audit purposes, you can add a description for your bulk update task. For more information about each field, see the Work item field index.

    Screenshot of Edit work items dialog.

  2. From the Query results page, save all work items that you bulk-modified. When you bulk modify items from the backlog, they're automatically saved. Work items shown in bold text indicate that local changes aren't saved to the data store. The Save items button might be in a different place in the UI than shown in the following picture, depending on the layout of your browser and the specific version in use.

    Screenshot of Query results page with Save items selected.

Move work items to a sprint

From any product, sprint, or portfolio backlog, you can drag a multi-selected list of work items and drop it onto a sprint in the Planning pane to change its iteration path. This action is not supported for users with Stakeholder access.

  1. To open the Planning pane, choose the view options icon and select Planning. You can choose to set In Progress items to On or Off.

    Screenshot of the Backlogs Open view options with Planning selected.

    The set of sprints selected for your team appears. If you don't see any sprints listed, you can add sprints or select existing sprints for your team's use. To learn how, see Manage sprint timelines.

  2. You can drag items from the Backlog onto a sprint.

    Screenshot of the Backlog where you can drag items to a sprint.

    This action updates the Iteration Path of the backlog items and any of its child tasks to the sprint you selected.

Modify rich-text fields in bulk

Rich-text fields support entry of HTML syntax tags to support formatting. Rich-text fields correspond to the Description, Acceptance Criteria, Repos Steps, and others listed in Example queries for select fields.

You can bulk update a rich-text field by using the bulk modify tool, selecting the field, and entering the text with syntax in the Value field. Or, you can create a work item template with the text you want to use and complete a bulk update by applying the template to the selected work items. For more information, see Use work item templates.

For an example using templates showing entry of HTML formatted syntax, see Sample work item templates, Add guidance in a rich-text field.

Modify tags in bulk

From the Edit work items dialog, select Tags (Add) or Tags (Remove).

This example adds the Service tag to the selected work items.

Screenshot of Edit work items dialog where you can add tags.

To add fields or customize a work item form, see Customize your work tracking experience. The method you use depends on the process model that supports your project.

Migrate or change a large number of work items

For large scale, organizational moves, use the REST API calls for Work item batch operations.

At this time, you can't move work items to a different organization or collection. You can only migrate work item information by exporting and then importing them using Excel.

Add multiple values to a field

If you implemented a custom control that supports multiple values, you can use Excel to bulk edit the field. You can't modify it using the web portal. You can only select a single value for the field.