Find a Work Item Based on its ID, Title, or Description

You can find and open a work item either by performing a search based on its ID or based on a keyword or phrase in its title or description field.

Note

The results of any find operation are based on the team project collection to which your client is currently connected. Work item IDs are unique across all work item types in all team projects in a project collection.

A search based on a work item ID always opens the work item form.

Searches based on a keyword or phrase list all work items that match the parameters you provide. From the list, you can open a specific work item. Searches are not case sensitive.

Topic Contents:

• Finding a Work Item based on its ID

• Finding a Work Item based on its Title or Description

You can also find work items by using queries. For more information, see Specify Query Filter Criteria.

Required Permissions

To perform this procedure, you must be a member of the Readers group or have your View work items in this node permission set to Allow. For more information, see Team Foundation Server Permissions.

Finding a Work Item Based on Its ID

To use Team Web Access to find a work item based on its ID

1. In Team Web Access, in the Work Item# box, type the ID number of the work item.

2. Click Go.

To use Team Explorer to find and open work item based on its ID

1. In Team Explorer, on the Team menu, click Go To Work Item.

   You can also right-click the Work Items node for your team project, and then click Go To Work Item, or press Ctrl+G.

2. In the Go to Work Item dialog box, in the ID box, type the ID number for which you want to search.

3. Click OK to open the work item.

Finding a Work Item Based on Its Title or Description

To use Team Web Access to search for a work item by keyword or phrase

1. In the Search box above the quick launch area, type a keyword or phrase that appears in a work item title or content.

   If you type multiple words, you must enclose them in quotation marks. Team Web Access searches for this text in both the Title and Description fields.

   The following are some listed examples:

   • To find all work items with the keyword "duplication" in the title or description:

     Duplication

   • To find all work items with the phrase "Getting Started" in the title or description:

     "Getting Started"

   • To find all work items with the phrase "Getting Started" and the keyword "feature" in the title or description:

     feature "Getting Started"

2. Click Search.

   Note

   You can construct more advanced searches by using field information, operators, and variables. For more information see Work Item Search Syntax (Team Web Access).

To use Team Explorer to search for a work item by keyword or phrase

1. On the Team menu, click Add Query.

   A new Flat List of Work Items (Default) query opens.

2. Specify the keyword or phases for your filter criteria. For example, construct the following set of clauses:

   And/Or	Field	Operator	Value
   	Team Project	=	@Project
   And	Title	Contains	keyword
   Or	Title	Contains	phrase
   Or	Description	Contains	keyword
   Or	Description	Contains	phrase

3. Select the four clauses that contain the Title and Description fields, and then click (Group Clause).

4. Click Run Query.

   The query will return work items whose title or description fields contain the keyword or phrase that you specified.

   For more information, see Specify Query Filter Criteria.

5. Click Run Query, check the results, and adjust the filter criteria as needed.

See Also

Tasks

Specify Query Filter Criteria

Concepts

Work Item Search Syntax (Team Web Access)

Finding Bugs, Tasks, and Other Work Items