Add or Remove Columns in a Work Item List

Article
02/04/2013

In a Microsoft Office Excel work item list that is bound to Team Foundation Server, you can use the Choose Columns dialog box to add, remove, and arrange the data fields that you want to appear in the list. You can also add extra columns by typing a title for the column in the worksheet. However, you cannot publish data entered in these columns to Team Foundation.

Topic Contents:

Adding Columns
Removing Columns
Rearranging Column Order

Required Permissions

To perform these procedures, 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.

Adding Columns

To add data columns in the work item list

Open or create a work item list in Office Excel.
On the Team tab, in the Work Items group, click Choose Columns.
In the Work Item Type list, click the type of work item for which you want to pick data columns.

This option filters the columns that appear under Available columns.
To add all columns that the work item requires, click Add Required.

Note

The columns that the work item type requires are marked (Required).
To add an optional column, for each column that you want to add, in the Available columns list, click the data column, and then click > (Add). Or, you can double-click the data column to add the column.
Click OK.

Removing Columns

To remove data columns from the work item list

Open or create a work item list in Office Excel.
On the Team tab, in the Work Items group, click Choose Columns.
In the Selected columns list, for each data column that you want to remove, click the column name and then click < (Remove).

Note

Any additional columns that you add to the worksheet, referred to as custom columns, will appear in the Selected columns list. These columns cannot be removed from the list; however, you can rearrange the column order. Also, for tree lists, only one Title column is displayed in the Selected columns list regardless of the number of levels there are in the tree hierarchy, and you cannot remove this column.

To restore the original column selections, click Reset.
Click OK.

Rearranging Column Order

To rearrange data column order

Open or create a work item list in Office Excel.
On the Team tab, in the Work Items group, click Choose Columns.
In the Selected columns list, click the name of a data column for which you want to change the order.
Click the up arrow button or down arrow button to the right of the list as appropriate.
Click OK.