Titles, IDs, Descriptions, and History (Agile)

You use the Title and ID fields to uniquely identify work items in a list. You use the Description and History fields to provide additional information that is needed to implement the work item and to track changes that are made to the work item.

After a work item is created, you can modify each of these fields except for ID. When you create and save a work item, the ID is assigned by Team Foundation and cannot be changed. 

The Title, ID, Description, and History fields are used to track information and changes for all work item types provided with the Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF) for Agile Software Development - v5.0 process template.

In this topic

• Fields that Appear on Work Item Forms

• Fields that Support Revision Tracking

• Additional Fields that Support Query and Reporting

Fields that Appear on Work Item Forms

The following table describes the fields that are used in tracking detailed information and historical revisions made for a work item. For information about data types and default field attributes, see Working with Work Item Fields.

Field name	Description	Reference name	Data type	Default value of the reportable type attribute	Default value of the index attribute
ID	The unique identifier that is assigned to a work item. Work item IDs are unique across all team projects and work items that are defined in a team project collection.	System.Id	Integer	Dimension	True
Title	A short description that summarizes what the work item is and helps users distinguish it from other work items in a list.	System.Title	String	Dimension	True
Description	The long description of a work item. This field provides more details about the work item than the title provides.	System.Description	PlainText	None	False
History	The record of changes that were made to the work item after it was created. Every time that the work item is updated, information is appended to the history, which specifies the date of the change, who made the changes, and which fields were changed. You can also add formatted text to the history field.	System.History	History	None	False

Fields that Support Revision Tracking

You can use the fields in the following table to filter queries and create reports. These fields are updated with information every time that a work item is modified. These fields do not appear on the work item form, but they are tracked for all types of work items.

Field name	Description	Reference name	Data type	Default value of the reportable type attribute	Default value of the index attribute
Changed By	The name of the team member who modified the work item most recently.	System.ChangedBy	String	Dimension	True
Changed Date	Date and time when the work item was modified most recently.	System.RevisedDate	DateTime	None	False
Rev	A number that is assigned to the historical revision of a work item.	System.Rev	Integer	Dimension	False

Additional Fields that Support Query and Reporting

You can use the fields in the following table to filter queries and create reports. The following fields do not appear on work item forms, but they are tracked for all types of work items.

Field name	Description	Reference name	Data type	Default value of the reportable type attribute	Default value of the index attribute
Node Name	The name of the parent node to which this work item belongs. The value for this field is the same as the team project.	System.NodeName	String	None	False
Team Project	The team project to which this work item belongs.	System.TeamProject	String	Dimension	False
Work Item Type	The name of the work item type.	System.WorkItemType	String	Dimension	True

See Also

Concepts

Task (Agile)

Customizing Microsoft Project Field Mappings

Using System Fields and Fields Defined by the MSF Process Templates

Finding Bugs, Tasks, and Other Work Items

Other Resources

Work Item Fields (Agile)