Get started as a Stakeholder

Azure DevOps Services | Azure DevOps Server 2022 - Azure DevOps Server 2019

Stakeholders are users with free but limited access to Azure DevOps features and functions. With Stakeholder access, you can add and modify work items, manage build and release pipelines, and view dashboards. You can check project status and provide direction, feedback, feature ideas, and business alignment to a team. For more information, see Build your GitHub repository and Build open source software (OSS) repositories.

Stakeholders are users with free but limited access to Azure DevOps features and functions. With Stakeholder access, you can add and modify work items, view and approve pipelines, and view dashboards. You can check project status and provide direction, feedback, feature ideas, and business alignment to a team.

For more information, see the Stakeholder access quick reference and the feature matrix.

Prerequisites

Private project:

  • You must have Stakeholder access and be a member of the Contributors or Project Administrators group. You can view boards, open and modify work items, and add child tasks to a checklist. But, you can't reorder or reparent a backlog item by using the drag-and-drop method. You also can't update a field on a card.

Public project:

  • You must have Stakeholder access and be a member of the Contributors or Project Administrators group to have full access to all Azure Boards features. For more information, see Default roles and access for public projects.

To get access as a Stakeholder, ask your organization owner or Project Collection Administrator to add you to a project with Stakeholder access.

To get access as a Stakeholder, ask your server administrator to add you to a security group that has Stakeholder access.

Sign in to a project

  1. Select the link provided in your email invitation or open a browser window and enter the URL for the web portal.

    https://dev.azure.com/OrganizationName/ProjectName

    http://ServerName:8080/tfs/DefaultCollection/ProjectName For example, to connect to the server named FabrikamPrime and the project named Contoso, enter http://FabrikamPrime:8080/tfs/DefaultCollection/Contoso.

  2. Enter your credentials. If you can't sign in, ask the organization owner or Project Administrator to add you as a member of the project with Stakeholder access.

Understand work items and types

Work items support planning and tracking work. Each work item is based on a work item type and is assigned an identifier, which is unique within an organization or project collection.

Different work items are used to track different types of work, as described in About work items. The work item types available are based on the process that was used when your project was created. The options are Agile, Basic, Scrum, or Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI), as illustrated in the following images.

The following image shows the hierarchy for the Agile process backlog work item:

  • User Stories and tasks are used to track work.

  • Bugs track code defects.

  • Epics and features are used to group work under larger scenarios.

    Diagram that shows Agile work item types.

Each team can configure how they manage Bug work items, at the same level as User Story or Task work items, by configuring the Working with bugs setting. For more information about using these work item types, see Agile process.

Open your Kanban board

You can view work items after you connect to a project.

  1. In your project, select Boards > Boards. Then select a team board from the dropdown menu.

    Screenshot that shows opening your Kanban board, cloud version.

    You can also enter a keyword in the search box or select View Board directory to see a list of available team boards.

    Screenshot that shows selecting another team's board.

    Tip

    Select the star icon to make a team board a favorite. Favorite artifacts ( favorite icon) appear at the top of the team selector list.

  2. Ensure that for the backlog level, you select:

    • Stories for Agile.
    • Issues for Basic.
    • Backlog items for Scrum.
    • Requirements for CMMI.

    Screenshot that shows the menu to select the product backlog level option of Backlog items, Stories, Issues, or Requirements.

  1. In your project, select Boards > Boards. Then select the team board from the dropdown menu.

    Screenshot that shows opening your Kanban board in on-premises versions.

    To select another team's board, open the selector. Then select a different team, or select the home icon Browse all team boards option. Or, you can enter a keyword in the search box to filter the list of team backlogs for the project.

    Screenshot that shows selecting another team's board in on-premises versions.

    Tip

    Select the star icon to make a team board a favorite. Favorite artifacts ( favorite icon) appear at the top of the team selector list.

  2. Check that for the backlog level, you selected:

    • Stories for Agile.
    • Issues for Basic.
    • Backlog items for Scrum.
    • Requirements for CMMI. Here, we selected Backlog items for the Scrum process.

    Screenshot that shows selecting the product backlog level option of Backlog items, Stories, Issues, or Requirements for on-premises versions.

Add work items

From your board, select the plus sign, enter a title, and then select Enter.

Screenshot that shows the highlighted New item button.

From the Kanban board, you can't add work items, but you can open them and annotate them. To add work items, open the backlog by selecting the Backlog link. Also, you can't update the status of a work item by using the drag-and-drop method to move a different column or reorder cards within a column.

For more information, see View and add work items from the Work Items page.

Update work items

Your work item forms might differ from the following images, but the functionality is the same.

Change status

Use the drag-and-drop method to move a work item downstream as you finish work.

Screenshot that shows a Kanban board that uses an Agile template to update the status of a work item.

Note

Stakeholders can only use the drag-and-drop method to move cards to different columns with the Azure DevOps Server 2020.1 update. For more information, see the Release Notes.

Add details

To open a work item, double-click the title or highlight it, and then select Enter. Here, we show how to assign work. You can only assign work to a user who was added to the project.

For example, here we assign the story to Raisa Pokrovskaya and at-mention Raisa in a discussion note. When you're finished, select Save & Close.

Screenshot that shows details in the Discussion box on the User Story work item form.

To add more details, you can change field values, add a description or tags, and add comments. For more information, see:

View as backlog

Check the product backlog to see how the team prioritized their work. Backlog items appear in priority order. Work item types might include bugs depending on the process used when your project was created.

From the Kanban board, select View as backlog.

Screenshot that shows View as backlog in a cloud version.

From the Kanban board, select View as backlog. Screenshot that shows View as backlog in an on-premises version.

The list of backlog items appears in priority order. You can add a backlog item, which goes to the bottom of the list. With Stakeholder access, you can't reprioritize work.

Find work items

Select Boards > Work Items. Then select an option from the dropdown menu. For example, select Assigned to me.

Screenshot that shows selections of work on the Work Items page and choosing Assigned to me.

For more information, see:

Next steps