Azure Boards - Sprint 172 Update
Features
- State transition restriction rules
- Copy work item to copy children
- Improved rules for activated and resolved fields
- System work item types on backlogs and boards (private preview)
State transition restriction rules
After several sprints of private preview, state transition restriction rules are now generally available for all customers. This new work item type rule allows you to restrict work items from being moved from one state to another. For example, you can restrict Bugs from going from New to Resolved. Instead, they must go from New –> Active -> Resolved
You can also create a rule to restrict state transitions by group membership. For example, only users in the “Approvers” group can move user stories from New -> Approved.
Copy work item to copy children
One of the top requested features for Azure Boards is the ability to copy a work item that also copies the child work items. In this sprint, we added a new option to "Include child work items" to the copy work item dialog. When selected, this option will copy the work item and copy all child work items (up to 100).
Improved rules for activated and resolved fields
Up until now, the rules for Activated By, Activated Date, Resolved By, and Resolved Date have been a mystery. They are only set for system work item types and are specific to the state value of "Active" and "Resolved". In sprint 172 we changed the logic so that these rules are no longer for a specific state. Instead, they are triggered by the category (state category) that the state resides in. For example, let's say you have a custom state of "Needs Testing" in the Resolved category. When the work item changes from "Active" to "Needs Testing", the Resolved By and Resolved Date rules are triggered.
This allows customers to create any custom state values and still generate the Activated By, Activated Date, Resolved By, and Resolved Date fields, without the need to use custom rules.
System work item types on backlogs and boards (private preview)
Since the inception of the inheritance process model, several work item types have been excluded from being added to boards and backlogs. These work item types include:
| Process | Work Item Type |
|---|---|
| Agile | Issue |
| Scrum | Impediment |
| CMMI | Change Request |
| Issue | |
| Review | |
| Risk |
Starting this sprint, we are allowing a private preview for those customers who want to enable these work items types to be available on any backlog level.
If you are interested in previewing this feature, please email us with your organization name and we can give you access.
Next steps
Note
These features will roll out over the next two to three weeks.
Head over to Azure DevOps and take a look.
How to provide feedback
We would love to hear what you think about these features. Use the help menu to report a problem or provide a suggestion.

You can also get advice and your questions answered by the community on Stack Overflow.