Thanks Paul. David put me in touch with Grant at Microsoft who was able to determine that it had been removed and he put up a notice ( http://blogs.msdn.com/b/vsoservice/archive/2014/07/08/issues-with-visual-studio-online-stack-rank-field-on-task-work-items-7-8-investigating.aspx) to that effect.
There is an Excel based work around, listed there too. However looking this morning I noticed that stack rank is back. On 4 August 2014 10:15, Paul Glavich <[email protected]> wrote: > We use TFS online all the time. We had noticed that StackRank column is > also missing from some of the forms. While you can include it to see what > the values are, you will find these values change as TFS online uses that > field now for internal ordering of backlog items. > > > > Quite painful for us since we use a customised version of scrum where we > actively attributed values to stack rank to assist in prioritisation of a > huge backlog at various phases. One might argue we should not have a huge > backlog but in our instance, this is not practical at all as stack rank was > one of the few common fields with bugs and stories. At any rate, we have > had to accommodate it by using the backlog ordering feature and a separate > area for defects/bugs. The removal of stackrank has forced us to cleanup > our backlog which is a good thing but we still need to retain a fair bit so > it has caused us more administrivia pain. I often find that scrum/agile > practices tend to work best in greenfields projects and the strictness that > is advocated causes more friction for no gain in much longer running > projects (Note: I am a scrum/agile advocate but I tend to customise each to > suite the environment/team/needs). > > > > I believe you can still access it if you use something like Excel to do > your work item management but you are fighting the system and I would guess > there may be times when that value gets overwritten internally by TFS > online so it is a risky proposition. > > > > - Glav > > > > *From:* [email protected] [mailto: > [email protected]] *On Behalf Of *Preet Sangha > *Sent:* Tuesday, 8 July 2014 3:45 PM > *To:* ozDotNet > *Subject:* Re: Any one here using the Visual Studio Online (TFS in the > cloud)? > > > > Thanks David. Will contact Grant directly. > > > > On 8 July 2014 17:09, David Kean <[email protected]> wrote: > > Grant says: > > > > Can you have them contact me directly with their > accountname.visualstudio.com? > > > > There was an issue on Friday regarding backlog columns, we may have > regressed something in some cases. > > > http://blogs.msdn.com/b/vsoservice/archive/2014/07/03/issues-with-visual-studio-online-work-item-backlog-management-2-7-investigating.aspx > > > > > > *From:* [email protected] [mailto: > [email protected]] *On Behalf Of *David Kean > *Sent:* Monday, July 7, 2014 9:43 PM > *To:* ozDotNet; Grant Holliday > *Subject:* RE: Any one here using the Visual Studio Online (TFS in the > cloud)? > > > > Grant? > > > > *From:* [email protected] [ > mailto:[email protected] <[email protected]>] *On > Behalf Of *Preet Sangha > *Sent:* Monday, July 7, 2014 6:18 PM > *To:* ozDotNet > *Subject:* Any one here using the Visual Studio Online (TFS in the cloud)? > > > > This morning all of us who logged into TFS (as opposed to were already > logged in on sleeping machines) have had Stack Rank removed from the Task > Work Item template. > > > > Cloud TFS doesn't allow changes to the WIT as you can with an in house TFS > server so I was wondering if any of the MS people here know if there was a > change to TFS that could have made this happen for us, or is there > something we need to specially to fix this? > > > > It's not critical at the moment but I'm sure if is affects us it will > affect a bazillion other people. > > > > > > Thanks. > > -- > regards, > Preet, Overlooking the Ocean, Auckland > > > > > > -- > regards, > Preet, Overlooking the Ocean, Auckland > -- regards, Preet, Overlooking the Ocean, Auckland
