Areas and iterations field reference

Area and iteration fields support categorizing work into product areas and iteration or sprint cycles. These fields display entries in a hierarchical or tree structure. These structures are useful for assigning work to specific project areas and time durations, as well as filtering project information in charts and reports.

You can assign the area and iteration fields to most work item types (WITs) that are provided with the default process templates for Team Foundation Server. You specify values for the area and iteration fields when you create a work item or during a review of the product or iteration backlog. If you defer a work item to a later time, you should change its iteration accordingly.

Classification fields that appear on work item forms

These fields appear on the forms for all WITs that TFS process templates provide. For information about data types and default field attributes, see Define and modify work item fields.

You can restrict who can modify work items under an area path. To define area and iteration paths or set permissions, see Add and modify area and iteration paths.

Field name	Description	Reference name	Data type	Default value of the reportable type attribute	Default value of the index attribute
Area Path	Groups work items into product feature or team areas. The area must be a valid node in the project hierarchy.	System.AreaPath	TreePath	Dimension	True
Iteration Path	Groups work items by named sprints or time periods. The iteration must be a valid node in the project hierarchy.	System.IterationPath	TreePath	Dimension	True

If you define a path name that is longer than 256 characters, you will not be able to specify it in Microsoft Project. To avoid this problem, define path names of no more than 10 characters, and do not nest nodes more than 14 levels deep.

You can’t apply most field rules to the System.AreaPath and System.IterationPath fields. To learn more, see Apply a field rule.

For additional restrictions, see restrictions in terms of naming and structuring child nodes.

Additional fields tracked for query and reporting purposes

The following fields do not appear on work item forms but are tracked for each work item type. These fields provide a numeric value for each classification value that is defined for a team project. You can use these fields to filter queries and create reports.

Field name	Description	Reference name	Data type	Default value of the reportable type attribute	Default value of the index attribute
Area ID	The unique ID of the area to which this work item is assigned.	System.AreaId	Integer	None	True
Iteration ID	The unique ID of the iteration to which this work item is assigned.	System.IterationId	Integer	None	True
Node Name	The name of the leaf node of an area path. For example, if the area path is Project\A1\B2\C3, the node name is C3.	System.NodeName	String	None	False

See Also

Concepts

Schedule sprints

Add and modify area and iteration paths

Define the initial areas and iterations in the classification plug-in

Work item field reference for Visual Studio ALM