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Introduction
Are you looking for a common platform where the work across teams is planned, tracked, and discussed? Well, you are at the right place to learn about Microsoft Azure Boards consisting of various configurable tools to define and update issues, bugs, user stories, and other activities. This article consists of details of Azure boards with their tremendous functionalities.
Without further ado, let's get started.
Azure Boards
The Microsoft Azure Boards provide a common interface for the teams to manage their projects using interactive and configurable features. Native support for Scrum,Agile, and Kanban processes, calendar views, customisable dashboards, and integrated reporting are just a few of the features it offers. As your company grows, these tools will scale with it. To keep your team informed of all the essential code modifications related to your work procedures, it enables you to monitor all of your ideas during every step of development. You can easily keep track of your project's efforts, bugs, and code flaws. The Kanban board is one of the various tools for adding, updating, and filtering user stories, issues, features, and epics.
Azure Boards offers you a wide range of features, such as integrated reporting, native support for Scrum and Kanban, configurable dashboards, and many more. The following are the services provided by Microsoft Azure Boards:
Track user stories, bugs, features, and epics
The default work item kinds, such as user stories, bugs, features, and epics, can be used to track numerous forms of work. Alternatively, you can alter or create your own types. Each work item form has a standard set of system fields and controls, such as Discussion, which allows you to add and track comments, History, Links, and Attachments. The Deployment, Development, and Related Work controls allow you to keep track of when code is distributed or modified, as well as the relationships between the work items.
Use interactive backlogs, lists, boards, and calendar views
Azure Boards has a number of hubs, each with its own set of interactive capabilities. Each tool offers a filtered list of tasks. The majority of tools allow you to add and update work items.
Open Work Items for personalized filtered lists
You can use the Work items hub to locate work items that have been assigned to you fast. Access numerous lists based on criteria you choose, such as work items you follow, are mentioned in or have read or edited.
Using the Boards portal, you may view work items as cards and make rapid status updates by dragging and dropping. Sticky notes on a physical whiteboard are similar to this capability. You can use it to put Kanban techniques in place and visualise the flow of work.
Use Backlogs to add, organize, prioritize, and assign work
You can view, plan, order, and organise work items using the Backlogs portal. A product backlog is a repository for all the information you need to manage and discuss with your team, as well as your project plan. Backlogs in your portfolio allow you to organise your work into features and epics.
Inorder to see a filtered view of work items based on a specific iteration path, or sprint, go to the Sprints portal. You can drag and drop work from your backlog to an iteration route. Use a backlog list or a card-based taskboard to implement Scrum methods.
Use Delivery plans for dependencies and calendar views
The Management teams can use the Delivery Plans portal to see deliveries and track dependencies across several teams in a calendar view. The following tasks are supported by fully interactive delivery plans:
Up to 15 team backlogs can be shown, with a mix of backlogs and teams from various projects.
Custom portfolio backlogs and epics are available to view.
Take a look at work that has gone through multiple incarnations.
Items from a plan's backlog can be added.
View the status of features, epics, and other portfolio items as they evolve.
You may attach GitHub commits, pull requests, and issues to work items by connecting Azure Boards to GitHub repositories. You may plan and track your work with Azure Boards while developing software on GitHub. Azure Boards has the scalability to grow with your company's and business's needs.
You can see and access connected GitHub contributions, pull requests, and issues from your Kanban board for more information.
Through the default process models set for a project, Azure Boards is meant to facilitate software development processes. As demonstrated in the graphics below, each process provides a set of work item categories with a natural hierarchy.
Basic is the most basic paradigm for tracking work via Issues, Tasks, and Epics.
Agile supports Agile planning methods, such as Scrum, and monitors the development and test activities separately. If you wish to track user stories and (optionally) bugs on the Kanban board, or problems and tasks on the taskboard, this technique is ideal.
On the Kanban board or displayed on a sprint taskboard, Scrum records work using product backlog items (PBIs) and bugs. The Scrum methodology is supported by this procedure.
The Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) framework provides a foundation for process improvement as well as a track record of decisions that can be audited. You may keep track of requirements, modification requests, risks, and reviews using this method. This procedure aids formal change management efforts.
Teams can use dashboards to construct custom views to gain visibility into their status, track progress, and spot trends. Dashboards allow you to share information and optimise workflow processes with ease. Each team can personalise their dashboards to share data and track their progress. You may also utilise Power BI to construct unique, complicated reports based on custom Analytics service queries. The Azure DevOps Analytics service is a reporting platform. It's built for quick reads and server-based aggregations. It can be used to answer quantitative queries about the status of your initiatives in the past or present.
You can get the complete integration with the Azure DevOpsplatform when you use Azure Boards. Azure DevOps is built to track work from requirements through deployment and give end-to-end traceability. You gain knowledge at every stage of the decision-making and software deployment process.
The following are some of the traceability tasks that are supported:
Make a branch based on a requirement.
Make a pull request for the new branch.
Using a build pipeline, validate the pull request.
Create and run inline requirements tests.
Merge the pull request into the default branch's main branch.
Changes should be deployed to production with a deployment status on Azure Boards.
Monitor and report on the traceability of requirements.
Support independent, autonomous teams
A collection of project participants who work on a specific product area is referred to as a team. Area Paths are used to symbolise certain areas. Area routes are a type of hierarchical path that denotes the various areas of ownership in a company. A team's name, members, and geographical paths all help to define it. Team configurations are used in Boards, Backlogs, Sprints, and Delivery Plans. You define a team, for example, if you wish to add a Kanban board or a product backlog. Azure Boards is compatible with your existing software. Integrate with Microsoft Teams and Slack to make ChatOps more productive. Extensions add functionality to other programs. An extension is a software item that can be installed and offers new features to your projects. The Azure DevOps Marketplace is where you'll find extensions. Extensions can help with task planning and tracking, sprints, scrums, and more, as well as team collaboration.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Agile?
Agile is an iterative method for project management and software development that enables teams to deliver value to clients more quickly and stress-free.
What do DevOps sprints entail?
Sprints are timed intervals of one to four weeks during which a product owner, scrum master, and scrum team collaborate to complete a specific product addition. On the basis of the backlog and user stories, work is done to develop new features during a sprint.
What is Kanban?
Kanban is one of the famous frameworks for implementing agile and DevOps software development. It necessitates complete transparency of work and real-time capacity communication.
Conclusion
In this article, we have extensively discussed the details of the Azure Board along with its various features and services.
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