Defining and Using Lists, Pick Lists, and Global Lists

You can enumerate a set of field values that a user can specify from a drop-down menu. You can specify different types of lists, which are also referred to as pick lists, and you can combine lists, restrict to whom a list applies, and set conditions on when a list appears on the work item form. You can define the following types of lists:

• Allowed values: You define a list of values that appear in a field list on work item forms and in the query editor. Users must specify one of these values.

• Suggested values: You define a list of suggested values that appear in a field list on work item forms and in the query editor. Users can specify values other than those that you suggest.

• Prohibited values: You define a list of values that a field is not allowed to contain. Users cannot save a work item if the field contains a prohibited value.

• Global list: You enumerate a set of values that are available for all work item types and for all team projects in a team project collection.

You can specify pick lists only for fields whose data type corresponds to Integer or String.

Common Tasks

Tasks	Related topics
Specify the allowed, suggested, and prohibited values of a list. You can use the ALLOWEDVALUES, SUGGESTEDVALUES, and PROHIBITEDVALUES elements to define the values that users can specify.	Defining Pick Lists
Share lists by using global lists. You can share list values among multiple types of work items by defining the GLOBALLIST object for tracking work items and adding it to a type definition.	Defining Global Lists
Expand lists, and exclude groups. You can control whether a distribution list is expanded to show its individual members or a list is filtered by using the optional expanditems and filteritems attributes.	Expanding List Items and Excluding Groups from Lists
Create and use a global list. You create a global list by defining an XML file and importing it into a team project collection. You add a global list to a work item type by adding the GLOBALLIST element to the type definition.	Add, Use, and Manage Global Lists
Combine different types of lists. You can achieve different types of lists by combining the ALLOWEDVALUES, SUGGESTEDVALUES, and PROHIBITEDVALUES elements in a list definition.	Using List Types in Combination

Related Tasks

Tasks	Related topics
List, export, import, and delete global lists. You can manage global lists in a team project collection by using the witadmin command-line tool.	Managing Global Lists for Work Item Types [witadmin]

See Also

Concepts

Working with Work Item Fields

Assigning Conditional-Based Values and Rules

Scoping a Field Rule to a Group

Using Tokens to Reference Users and Groups

Customizing Project Tracking Data, Forms, Workflow, and Other Objects