View and Modify Work Items in a Tree View (Team Explorer Everywhere)

You can find and modify work items that are related with parent-child links or custom link types whose topology is tree by using the tree view query.

A tree view of work items is particularly useful when you want to view the hierarchy that you have created. In Team Explorer Everywhere 2010, you cannot promote or demote items in a hierarchy, nor can you drag-and-drop work items. You must open work items to change their link relationships. For more information, see Create or Delete Relationships Between Work Items (Team Explorer Everywhere).

You can use the tree view only to list work items that are related using tree topology type of links. To view two-tiered relationships among work items that are related based on any type of link, you can use the Work Items and Direct Links query as described in View and Modify Work Items in a Direct Links View (Team Explorer Everywhere).

In this topic

To view and modify work items in a tree view, complete one of the following procedures:

• Listing Work Items in a Tree View

• Changing a Query to a Tree View Query

After your query is defined, you can save it to reuse it or share it later with other team members. For more information, see Organize and Set Permissions on Work Item Queries (Team Explorer Everywhere).

Required Permissions

To list and view work items, you must be a member of the Readers group or your View work items in this node permission must be set to Allow. To modify link relationships, you must be a member of the Contributors group or have your View work items in this node and Edit work items in this node permissions set to Allow. To save a query as a team query, you must have the required permissions set. For more information, see the following topic on the Microsoft Web site: Team Foundation Server Permissions.

Listing Work Items in a Tree View

To create a tree view query

1. Expand your team project, expand the Work Items node, right-click Team Queries or My Queries, and then click New Query.

2. For the type of query, click Tree of Work Items.

3. Specify the filter criteria for the top tier of work items:

   1. Click each column in the query clause to fill in the clause. If a column has a list of accepted values, click the arrow and select one from the list. For a description of the available columns, see Query Fields, Operators, Values, and Variables (Team Explorer Everywhere).

   2. Click the * in the left-most column to add a new clause, and specify the values for Field, Operator, and Value. You can also right-click in the left-most column and then click Insert Clause to add a clause at a specific location in the query.

   3. Repeat step 3b to add all of the filter criteria that will return the list of work items that you want. Group or ungroup clauses as needed. For more information, see Specify Query Criteria.

   4. Right-click in the query editor and click Run Query.

      You can also click Run Query on the toolbar.

      The top tier of work items should be displayed in a tree hierarchy that contains all work items that are related with parent-child links. For more information about these link types, see the following topic on the Microsoft Web site: Working with Link Types.

   5. Repeat steps 3c and 3d until you get the set of work items that you want.

4. (Optional) If you have added custom link types that specify the tree topology, you can change the value of the Link Type to one that matches your custom link type.

5. (Optional) On the toolbar, click Column Options to modify which columns appear in the query results. For more information, see Add, Remove, Reorder, and Sort Columns (Team Explorer Everywhere).

6. (Optional) On the File menu or the toolbar, click Save. For more information, see Save, Copy, Rename, and Delete Work Item Queries (Team Explorer Everywhere).

Changing a Query to a Tree View Query

To change a query to a tree query

1. Expand your team project, expand the Work Items node, expand Team Queries or My Queries, right-click the query that you want to modify, and then click Edit Query.

2. To select the type of query, click Tree of Work Items.

3. (Optional) Modify your query filter criteria as needed.

4. On the File menu or the toolbar, click Save.

See Also

Tasks

Add, Remove, Reorder, and Sort Columns (Team Explorer Everywhere)

Save, Copy, Rename, and Delete Work Item Queries (Team Explorer Everywhere)

Concepts

Choose Link Types to Effectively Track Your Project (Team Explorer Everywhere)

Other Resources

Getting Started with Team Explorer Everywhere and Team Foundation Server

Query Fields, Operators, Values, and Variables (Team Explorer Everywhere)

Finding Bugs, Tasks, and Other Work Items (Team Explorer Everywhere)

Work Items and Workflow (Agile)

Work Items and Workflow (CMMI)