Events, subscriptions, and notifications

TFS 2017

This article describes the different actions or operations that generate email notifications.

Events

Certain actions create Events, like when a work item gets created or a pull request is voted on. See the list of supported event types.

Subscriptions

A notification subscription is associated with a supported event type. The subscription includes a set of filters used to match events. For example, a subscription for a work item created event might include a filter that matches only the work item type: Bug. Or, a subscription for a pull request created event might include a filter for a specific repository and branch.

Default email subscriptions

Many useful email subscriptions are predefined and enabled by default in the system. They're known as default subscriptions. Default subscriptions provide out-of-box support for the most common notification scenarios. See the list of available default subscriptions.

An organization or team administrator can choose which of the default subscriptions to make available to their users. Learn how to manage team and organization notifications.

Individual users can choose to opt out of any default subscription while other team members continue to be subscribed. Learn how to manage personal notification subscriptions.

Custom email subscriptions

Organization or team administrators can create Custom email subscriptions that apply to all members of the organization or team. Learn how to manage team and organization notifications. To learn more about querying with group clauses, see Create managed queries.

Individuals can also create custom subscriptions, which apply only to them. Learn how to manage personal subscriptions.

Custom service hook subscriptions

Service hooks subscriptions can be used to integrate with third-party services. When an Azure DevOps event matches a service hook subscription, the third-party service receives a notification. For example, when an Azure DevOps build completes, a notification goes to a Slack channel with links back to the build artifact in Azure DevOps. See Integrating with third party services.

Notifications

When an event occurs in Azure DevOps, its content is compared with every subscription of that event type. If the subscription's filter conditions are met by the event, a notification is generated. A notification is generated for every subscription/event match.

Each notification is then delivered based on the delivery properties defined in the subscription (either as an email or as a service hook). Learn more about email delivery options.