Effort, Schedules, and Tracking Work Field Reference

You use the fields described in this topic to track estimated, completed, and remaining work for a backlog item, bug, or task and to report on the progress toward completing tasks. By tracking work, you gain more detailed insight into which user stories, requirements, or backlog items are almost finished and what the team burn rate is. Several reports and dashboards provide charts that display the data that these fields contain.

You specify the level of effort for the tasks that you are assigned. For more information about how to track work, see Work in sprints.

In this topic

• Fields used to estimate and track work

• Fields calculated by Office Project

Fields used to estimate and track work

The following table describes the fields that you can use to track work. This information is tracked only for task work items. 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
Activity	The type of activity that is required to perform a task. (Agile and Scrum process templates) Allowed values: Deployment Design Development Documentation Requirements Testing Note This field is also used to calculate capacity by activity. It is assigned to type="Activity" in the CommonConfiguration file. See Customize the Backlog and Board Pages Using Process Configuration.	Microsoft.VSTS.Common.Activity	String	Dimension	False
Completed Work	The amount of work that has been spent implementing a task. You can specify work in hours or in days. There are no inherent time units associated with this field.	Microsoft.VSTS.Scheduling.CompletedWork	Double	Measure, Sum	False
Discipline	The type of activity or discipline that is assigned to a task. (CMMI process template) Allowed values: Analysis Development Test User Education User Experience Note This field is also used to calculate capacity by activity. It is assigned to type="Activity" in the CommonConfiguration file. See Customizing Process Configuration.	Microsoft.VSTS.Common.Discipline	String	Dimension	False
Due Date	The forecasted due date for an issue to be resolved. (Agile process template only)	Microsoft.VSTS.Scheduling.DueDate	DateTime	Dimension	False
Effort	A subjective unit of measure that captures the size of a bug or product backlog item. If you assign more effort to an item, you indicate that more work is required to implement it. (Scrum process template only) Note This field is also used to calculate team velocity and forecasting. It is assigned to type="Effort" in the CommonConfiguration file. See Customize the Backlog and Board Pages Using Process Configuration.	Microsoft.VSTS.Scheduling.Effort	Double	Measure, Sum	False
Story Points	A subjective unit of measure that captures the size of a user story. If you assign more points to a user story, you indicate that more work is required to implement it. (Agile process template only) Note This field is also used to calculate team velocity and forecasting. It is assigned to type="Effort" in the CommonConfiguration file. See Customize the Backlog and Board Pages Using Process Configuration.	Microsoft.VSTS. Scheduling.StoryPoints	Double	Measure, Sum	False
Size	A subjective unit of measure that captures the size of a requirement. The larger the size, the more work is required to implement it. (CMMI process template only) Note This field is also used to calculate team velocity and forecasting. It is assigned to type="Effort" in the CommonConfiguration file. See Customize the Backlog and Board Pages Using Process Configuration.	Microsoft.VSTS. Scheduling.Size	Double	Measure, Sum	False
Original Estimate	The amount of work required to complete a task. You can specify work in hours or in days. There are no inherent time units associated with this field. (Agile and CMMI process templates)	Microsoft.VSTS.Scheduling.OriginalEstimate	Double	Measure, Sum	False
Remaining	The amount of work that remains to finish a task. You can specify work in hours or in days. There are no inherent time units associated with this field. Note This field is also used to calculate burn down. It is assigned to type="RemainingWork" in the CommonConfiguration file. See Customize the Backlog and Board Pages Using Process Configuration.	Microsoft.VSTS.Scheduling.RemainingWork	Double	Measure, Sum	False
Task Type	Specifies the kind of task to implement. (CMMI process template) You can specify one of the following values: Corrective Action Mitigation Action Planned	Microsoft.VSTS.CMMI.TaskType	String	Dimension	False

Fields calculated by Office Project

The following table lists fields that are calculated if you create a project plan in Microsoft Project and then synchronize that plan with tasks that are stored in TFS. These fields do not appear on the work item form, but they are calculated for those backlog items and tasks that are linked to backlog items. You can view their read-only values in results from a query or from Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Project. For more information, see Schedule tasks and assign resources using Microsoft Project.

Field name	Description	Reference name	Data type	Default value of the reportable type attribute	Default value of the index attribute
Finish Date	The date and time when the schedule indicates that the task will be completed.	Microsoft.VSTS.Scheduling.FinishDate	DateTime	Dimension	False
Start Date	The date and time when the schedule indicates that the task will start.	Microsoft.VSTS.Scheduling.StartDate	DateTime	Dimension	False

See Also

Concepts

Customize Microsoft Project Field Mappings

Planning, Ranking, and Priorities Field Reference

Work Item Field Reference for Visual Studio ALM