Add Markdown to a dashboard

  • Article
  • 2 minutes to read

TFS 2017 | TFS 2015

Use the Markdown widget to support your team and stakeholders by adding information such as:

  • Team goals.
  • Links to:
    • Team backlogs or boards.
    • Metrics.
    • Other items located in a network share such as a OneNote, SharePoint site, or wiki pages.
  • Important dates or target deadlines.

Here's an example:
Web portal, Sample Markdown widget

Prerequisites

  • You must be a member of a project. If you don't have a project yet, create one.
  • If you haven't been added as a project member, get added now.
  • Anyone with access to a project, including stakeholders, can view dashboards.
  • To add, edit, or manage a team dashboard, you must have Basic access or greater and be added to the team administrator role for the team.

Note

Data displayed within a chart or widget is subject to permissions granted to the signed in user. To learn more, see FAQs on Azure DevOps dashboards, charts, and reports, Access and permissions.

Supported Markdown syntax

The Markdown widget supports CommonMark standard features, such as:

  • Headings
  • Paragraphs and line breaks
  • Blockquotes
  • Horizontal rule
  • Emphasis (bold, italics, strikethrough)
  • Tables
  • Lists, both ordered and unordered
  • Links
  • Images
  • Escaping characters

For details on usage, see Syntax guidance for basic Markdown usage.

For performance reasons, the Markdown widget doesn't add support for many extended features, many of which are supported in the wiki. Extended capabilities would impede widget load time. For example, the following extended Markdown features aren't supported in the Markdown widget:

  • Embedded HTML syntax
  • Code highlighting (wiki/others support language-syntax aware color coding, CommonMark just renders code as plain preformatted text)
  • Checklists
  • Emoji characters
  • Attachments
  • Math formulas

Connect to your project

To add the Markdown widget to a dashboard, you connect to your project using a supported web browser.

Add the Markdown widget

If you need to add a dashboard, see Add, rename, and delete dashboards.

Note

Requires TFS 2015.1 or later version.