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Azure DevOps Services | Azure DevOps Server 2022 - Azure DevOps Server 2019 | TFS 2018
Azure Boards is a web-based service that enables teams to plan, track, and discuss work across the entire development process, while it supports agile methodologies, including Scrum and Kanban. Azure Boards provides a customizable platform for managing work items, allowing teams to collaborate effectively and streamline their workflow. Sign up, customize, and experience the benefits of using Azure Boards.
Use Azure Boards hubs
You can track and manage work and access various functions within each of the following hubs.
| Azure Boards hub | Functions |
|---|---|
| Work items | Access lists of work items based on specific criteria, such as those assigned to you, ones you follow, and work items you viewed or updated. |
| Boards | View work items as cards and update their status through drag-and-drop, similar to physical sticky notes on a whiteboard. Use this feature to implement Kanban practices and visualize work flow for a team. |
| Backlogs | View, plan, order, and organize work items, including using a product backlog to represent your project plan and a portfolio backlog to group work under features and epics. |
| Sprints | Access your team's filtered view of work items based on a specific sprint or iteration path. Assign work to a sprint using drag-and-drop from the backlog. Interact with a backlog list or card-based Taskboard to implement Scrum practices. |
| Queries | Generate custom work item lists and perform various tasks, such as triage work, make bulk updates, and view relationships between work items. Queries also allow for creating status and trend charts that can be added to dashboards. |
| Delivery Plans | Management teams can view deliverables and track dependencies across multiple teams in a calendar view. Delivery plans support tasks such as viewing up to 15 team backlogs, custom portfolio backlogs and epics, and work that spans several iterations. Users can add backlog items to a plan, view rollup progress of features and epics, and dependencies between work items. |
| Analytics views | Create highly sophisticated Power BI reports, based on Azure Boards data (work items). Access default Analytics views or create a custom view. |
Azure Boards hubs UI
Benefits of using Azure Boards
The following table lists some of the benefits of using Azure Boards.
| Benefit | Details |
|---|---|
| Start simply, scale as you grow | Azure Boards offers predefined work item types for tracking features, user stories, bugs, and tasks, making it easy to start using your product backlog or Kanban board. It supports different Agile methods, so you can implement the method that suits you best. You can add teams as your organization grows to give them the autonomy to track their work as they see fit. |
| Use visual, interactive tools | Visual tools help teams quickly see and share progress with Kanban boards, product backlogs, built-in scrum boards and planning tools, and delivery plans. |
| Customize easily | Easily configure and customize Kanban boards, Taskboards, and delivery plans through the user interface, as well as add custom fields, work item types, and portfolio backlogs. |
| Use built-in social tools and communication | Work item forms provide built-in discussion that you can use to capture questions, notes, and communication as they occur. You can maintain a history of what a team decides on any particular work item. You can also quickly bring a team member or an entire team into the conversation by using @mentions. |
| Capture information, generous cloud storage | Work items are designed to track all the information you need. You can edit in rich text, drag and drop inline images, and add larger attachments - up to 60 MB and as many as 100. Also, you can link work items within a hierarchy or by simple related links. Each work item form maintains a history of changes, so you can review what changed, who made the change, and when. |
| Find what you need quickly and get notified of changes | Azure Boards provides easy-to-use tools to help you quickly find specific work items as your project grows. You can follow work items to monitor updates and changes, use pivot views to show work items assigned to you, use the query engine to filter work items based on any field, and use ad-hoc search with quick inline filters. You can also personalize your alerts for work items that are assigned to you or have been changed. |
| Monitor status and progress with built-in dashboards and analytics | With Azure Boards, you gain access to many tools to generate reports to support tracking status and trends. By using configurable dashboards, you can add one or more widgets. You configure widgets to display the information and data you want, such as the following bug burndown widget. Along with dashboards, you have access to the Analytics service. This service is optimized for fast read-access and server-based aggregations. By using Analytics views and Power BI, you can create highly sophisticated reports on the project data of interest. |
| Integrate with Office | Project managers who want to use familiar tools can import and export work item queries to and from Microsoft Office Excel or import and export work items using .csv files. For more information, see Bulk import or update work items using CSV files or Bulk add or modify work items with Excel |
| Extend functionality | You can gain even greater functionality by adding Marketplace extensions, many of which are free. An extension is an installable unit that adds capabilities to Visual Studio, Azure DevOps Services, or Visual Studio Code. You can find extensions within these products or in the Visual Studio Marketplace, Azure DevOps tab. Also, by using the REST API, you can create your own extensions or tools to integrate with Azure DevOps Services. |
| Get updates via a mobile browser | It's easy to stay on top of changes as they occur, using the mobile browser, you can be notified and respond to changes made to work items. |
| Start for free | You can start for free and add up to five free users and unlimited stakeholders. |
For more information, see our Training module, What is Azure Boards?
Connect Azure Boards to GitHub
You can connect Azure Boards with GitHub repositories to link GitHub commits, pull requests, and issues to work items. Use GitHub for software development and Azure Boards to plan and track work. Quickly open linked GitHub commits, pull requests, or issues from the Kanban board. For more information, see GitHub & Azure Boards.
Implement Agile, Scrum, and Kanban processes
Azure Boards supports software development processes with default process models. Each process includes a set of work item types with a natural hierarchy.
Basic provides the simplest model that tracks work through Issues, Tasks, and Epics.
Agile supports Agile planning methods (learn more about Agile methodologies at theAgile Alliance), including Scrum,and tracks development and test activities separately. This process works great if you want to track user stories and(optionally) bugs on the Kanban board, or track bugs and tasks on the Taskboard.
Scrum tracks work using product backlog items (PBIs) andbugs on the Kanban board or viewed on a sprint Taskboard.
This process supports the Scrum methodology as defined by the Scrum organization
Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) supports a framework for process improvement and an auditable record of decisions. With this process, you can track requirements, change requests, risks, and reviews.This process supports formal change management activities.
Configure dashboards and Power BI reports
Dashboards provide teams with customized views for status updates, progress tracking, and trend analysis. Teams can share information and improve workflows with flexible and tailored dashboard options.
Use Power BI to create customized reports based on Analytics service queries for quantitative analysis of project data. For more information, see About dashboards, charts, reports, & widgets and What is the Analytics service?.
Gain visibility through end-to-end traceability
With Azure Boards, you gain the advantage of full integration with the Azure DevOps platform. Azure DevOps is designed to provide end-to-end traceability, tracking work from requirements to deployment. Gain insight at each step of decision making and software deployment. Some of the traceability tasks supported include:
- Create a branch from a requirement
- Create a pull request of updated branch
- Validate the pull request using a build pipeline
- Create and run inline tests on requirements
- Merge the pull request into the main, default branch
- Deploy changes into production with deployment status to Azure Boards
- Monitor and report on requirements traceability
For more information, see End-to-end traceability and Cross-service integration and collaboration overview.
Support independent, autonomous teams
A team in Azure Boards is a group of project members who work in a specific product area represented by hierarchical paths called Area Paths. Define teams by their name, members, and area paths and are essential for configuring Boards, Backlogs, Sprints, and Delivery Plans in Azure Boards. For more information, see About teams and Agile tools.
Azure Boards integrates with popular chat tools such as Microsoft Teams and Slack through ChatOps. It also offers extensions that add new capabilities to your projects and can be found in the Azure DevOps Marketplace. These extensions can help with planning and tracking work items, sprints, scrums, and other project management tasks, as well as collaboration among team members.
Related articles
FAQs
What is boards in Azure boards? ›
Azure Boards is a web-based service that enables teams to plan, track, and discuss work across the entire development process, while it supports agile methodologies, including Scrum and Kanban.
What is Azure Boards app? ›Azure Boards was launched in 2018, keeping the needs of DevOps and agile project teams in mind. It enables work visualisation through Kanban boards and supports drag-and-drop sprint planning. You could think of it almost as an alternative to Trello, natively married into the Microsoft ecosystem.
What are the Azure Board states? ›The four main states that are defined for the User Story (Agile process) describe a user story's progression. The workflow states are New, Active, Resolved, and Closed. (The Removed state supports removing a work item from appearing on the backlog; for more information, see Move, change, or delete work items.)
What is the difference between planner and Azure boards? ›Wondering what the difference between Azure Boards vs. Planner is? The MS Azure Boards app is suitable for scrum teams that need to manage complex projects, whereas Planner is more suitable for simple task management.
What are the boards used in Scrum? ›The Scrum Board usually consists of a whiteboard or a wall space with columns drawn in and sticky notes used to mark different items. A basic Scrum Board has 3 columns, "To do", "Doing", and "Done".
What are boards in Scrum? ›Scrum boards are visual project management tools that help Scrum teams visualize backlog items and work progress. Scrum boards track individual sprints and help team members visualize their progress. Scrum boards are also known as Scrum task boards or sprint boards.
How do I access Azure boards? ›Sign in to your organization at any time by entering https://dev.azure.com/{yourorganization} in your web portal. You can change the organization or project settings at any time. Start free with GitHub: Choose this option if you have an existing GitHub account.
Is Azure boards similar to Jira? ›Azure DevOps and Jira are two popular project management tools for DevOps teams, and although the two share some similar features, they have different core aims and use cases. Those already using Microsoft Azure are likely to find Azure DevOps a more integrated option that's ready to go out of the box.
Which of the following are tools of Azure boards? ›Get your work done with simple and modern agile tools like Kanban boards, backlogs, dashboards, and scrum boards.
How do I create an Azure board? ›- Create the Project. Step 1: Login into the dev.azure.com using the below URL: ...
- Create Team and Add Team Members. Step 6: Now to create a team click on the Invite from the Upper right corner of the project. ...
- Create the Board. ...
- Define a Sprint. ...
- Assign Tasks and Set Iterations.
Is Microsoft Azure boards free? ›
That means that you can use Azure Boards (Agile boards, backlogs etc), Azure Repos (Git repositories, pull requests etc), Azure Pipelines (CI/CD, environments etc) and Azure Artifacts (Package management) for free, virtually without limits (I'll explain Azure Test Plans later).
How many types of Azure are there? ›In addition, Azure offers four different forms of cloud computing: infrastructure as a service (IaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), software as a service (SaaS) and serverless functions.
Which is better Jira or Azure boards? ›Testing and Quality Assurance: Both Jira and Azure DevOps provide tools for testing and quality assurance, but Azure DevOps provides a more comprehensive set of tools, including testing plans, test cases, and test suites.
What is epic in Azure board? ›Issues and Tasks are used to track work, while Epics are used to group work under larger scenarios. The Basic process is available with Azure DevOps Server 2019 Update 1 and later versions. For more information about using these work item types, see Plan and track work.
What is the board called in agile? ›A kanban board is an agile project management tool designed to help visualize work, limit work-in-progress, and maximize efficiency (or flow). It can help both agile and DevOps teams establish order in their daily work.
What type of board is Jira? ›There are two types of boards in Jira Software: Scrum board — for teams that plan their work in sprints. Kanban board — for teams that focus on managing and constraining their work-in-progress.
What is a board in agile? ›Definition. agile board. An agile board is the visual representation of an agile development process. The board lets you view the current status of each task, group related tasks, estimate your efforts, and track the progress toward completion for each task. The columns on the board represent the development cycle.
What are the 3 roles in Scrum? ›Scrum has three roles: product owner, scrum master, and the development team members. While this is pretty clear, what to do with existing job titles can get confusing. Many teams ask if they need to change their titles when adopting scrum. The short answer is no.
Why is it called a Scrum board? ›The term scrum is borrowed from rugby, meaning a formation of players. The paper's authors employed this sports' term, scrum, in order to emphasize teamwork, since close, daily collaboration of team members is a hallmark trait of the project management framework.
What is the main purpose of Scrum board? ›A Scrum board is a visual way to manage and organize projects, breaking them down into defined “sprints” of time. It is a key part of a larger project management system known as the Scrum process or Scrum framework.
Why use Azure boards? ›
Azure Boards is interactive and customizable, and provides a rich set of capabilities including native support for Agile, Scrum, and Kanban processes, calendar views, configurable dashboards, and integrated reporting.
How do I connect Excel to Azure boards? ›(1) Choose Servers..., (2) choose Add..., (3) enter the URL of your Azure Boards organization, and (4) check that the preview matches the URL that you entered. Then choose OK. If you can't connect, get added as a team member. With the server selected, choose the project you want to connect to, and then choose Connect.
What is Azure pipelines? ›Azure Pipelines automatically builds and tests code projects. It supports all major languages and project types and combines continuous integration, continuous delivery, and continuous testing to build, test, and deliver your code to any destination.
What is the difference between task and issue in Azure boards? ›Issue- An event or cause that may delay shipping. Task- A task communicates the need to do some work. Each team member can define tasks to represent the work that they need to accomplish.
Is Azure a project management tool? ›Azure DevOps is a Microsoft project management platform that speeds development, testing, and application deployment by bringing the development and operations teams together for fast and seamless software delivery.
What DevOps means? ›DevOps is the combination of cultural philosophies, practices, and tools that increases an organization's ability to deliver applications and services at high velocity: evolving and improving products at a faster pace than organizations using traditional software development and infrastructure management processes.
How do I create a test plan in Azure board? ›- From the web portal, open your project and go to Test Plans. If you already have a test plan, select Test Plans to go to the page that lists all test plans.
- In the Test Plans page, select New Test Plan to create a test plan for your current sprint.
- In New Test Plan, enter a name for the test plan.
| If you want to | Use this |
|---|---|
| Personalize and manage your Azure environment | Microsoft Azure portal |
| Stay connected to your Azure resources from anywhere at anytime | Azure mobile app |
| Empowering service providers to manage customers at scale and with precision | Azure Lighthouse |
An application tier with one quad-core processor, 16 GB or more of memory, and a fast hard-disk drive. A data tier with two or more quad-core processors, 16 GB or more of memory, and advanced high-performance storage, like an SSD or high-performance SAN.
How do I Create a dashboard in Azure boards? ›To create a Project Dashboard, select New Dashboard to display the Create a dashboard panel. After setting the name and description, under Dashboard Type, select Project Dashboard. A Project Dashboard is public. Everyone in the project can view the dashboard.
How do I install Azure Boards app? ›
To install it, navigate to the Azure Boards page on GitHub. Choose Set up a plan. Select the repositories you want to connect to Azure Boards (or all repositories) and click Install. Select the Azure DevOps organization and Azure Boards project you want to connect to GitHub.com.
Can you Create multiple boards in Azure DevOps? ›To have multiple boards in a team project, the user needs to create a new team. Each team comes with a Kanban board and a taskboard.
Can I practice Azure for free? ›Take advantage of free products
Some are always free to all Azure customers, and some are free for 12 months to new customers only.
- Create a DevOps transformation roadmap. To adopt DevOps, create a roadmap. ...
- Select a DevOps toolchain. ...
- Implement tools and strategies for cultural transformation. ...
- Automate processes. ...
- Focus on data and analytics. ...
- Run a pilot project. ...
- Prepare for continuous learning and improvement.
- Prerequisites. ...
- Add the Azure Boards app to Microsoft Teams. ...
- Link your Azure Boards project to the Azure Boards app. ...
- Set up subscriptions. ...
- Add area paths. ...
- Create a work item with a command. ...
- Create a work item from message actions. ...
- Manage Azure Boards subscriptions.
- Azure Blob Storage. Blob is one of the most common Azure storage types. ...
- Azure Files. Azure Files is Microsoft's managed file storage in the cloud. ...
- Azure Queue Storage. ...
- Azure Table. ...
- Azure Managed Disks.
- Azure Solutions Architect Expert. Earning the Azure Solutions Architect Expert certification and taking down its two demanding certification exams is one of the most challenging feats in cloud certs. ...
- Azure Fundamentals. ...
- Azure Administrator Associate.
- Virtual Machines. ...
- Azure Virtual Desktop. ...
- Managed, always up-to-date SQL instance in the cloud.
- Fast NoSQL database with open APIs for any scale.
- Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) ...
- Azure Cognitive Services. ...
- App Service. ...
- Everything you need to build and operate a live game on one platform.
A Sprint Backlog is owned by the small Sprint team tasked with working on the items included in the list. Hence a large project can have several small teams, each working on its own Sprint Backlog. A Kanban Board is owned by the entire department or even the company.
What is board in Agile? ›Definition. agile board. An agile board is the visual representation of an agile development process. The board lets you view the current status of each task, group related tasks, estimate your efforts, and track the progress toward completion for each task. The columns on the board represent the development cycle.
What are boards in Microsoft teams? ›
The Microsoft Teams Boards app allows teams to create boards about any topic and pin related content to the board. The Boards app is similar to Pinterest in that it allows users to collate content and organize it into boards created for specific topics.
What are boards in project management? ›At its simplest, a project board is literally a digital board that provides a visual of the work you need to get done. You can move and prioritize tasks on a project board as the project evolves and changes. A project board allows you to easily see the big picture so you can prioritize tasks effectively.
What is backlog in Azure boards? ›Your backlog consists of a list of work items. You use work items to share information, assign work to team members, track dependencies, organize work, and more. Because the most important work appears at the top of the list, your team always knows what to work on next.
What is the difference between Scrum and sprint boards? ›A scrum board is a Task board tracking work in Sprints. A Sprint is a short, consistent and repetitive period of time. The length of the Sprint is short enough to keep the team focused but long enough to deliver shippable increment of work.
What is a board in Jira? ›A board displays your team's work as cards you can move between columns. In Jira Software, cards and the tasks they represent are called “issues”. Usually, your board reflects your team's process, tracking the status of work as it makes its way through your team's process.
What are board tasks? ›A task board is a tool used by individuals, teams or organizations to represent work and its path towards completion. This includes tasks that are in progress, finished tasks and upcoming tasks that may be in a backlog.
What is a board in Office 365? ›The calendar in Microsoft 365 for the web includes an often-overlooked tool that can help. Board View allows you to manage your schedule and tasks in one place while also being able to quickly access related files, notes, and remember goals.
What is a bucket in Sharepoint? ›Buckets can indicate stages of development, days of the week, sprints, and more. You can move tasks around your board just by dragging and dropping them, so if you complete a task or just want to prioritize and shuffle things around, you can do that easily.
How do I create a team board in Azure DevOps? ›- Choose New team. ...
- When finished, select Create team. ...
- Select the team to add team administrators, team members, configure iterations and areas. ...
- To add team members, choose Add.
- Enter the sign-in addresses or display name for each account you want to add.
- Advisory board: These boards provide advice and recommendations to an organization's main board. ...
- Governing board: A governing board has the authority to control and lead an organization. ...
- Managing or executive board: This type of board runs a company's daily operations.
What types of boards are there? ›
- Board of Directors: A group of individuals elected or appointed to govern an organization, such as a corporation or nonprofit. ...
- Board of Trustees: ...
- Board of Regents: ...
- Board of Commissioners: ...
- Advisory Board: ...
- Board of Managers: ...
- Board of Advisors: ...
- Board of Directors and Trustees:
A board of directors is a group of people who represent the interests of a company's shareholders. It also provides guidance and advice to an organization's CEO and executive team. A board provides general oversight of operations without getting involved in day-to-day operations.