Query work item history and discussion fields

Azure DevOps Services | Azure DevOps Server 2022 - Azure DevOps Server 2019

The history of a work item records who created the item, what changes were made, and the reasons behind those changes. This information is essential for tracking the evolution of an item over time. When adding entries to the history field, include detailed information to help the next work item owner understand the context of the changes and the actions required.

Note

There is no separate Discussion work item field. To query work items with comments from the Discussion area, filter on the History field. All text entered into the Discussion box is automatically included in the History field.

Prerequisites

• Access levels:
  • To view and run shared queries, be a project member.
  • To add and save a shared query, have at least Basic access.
• Permissions: Have your Contribute permission set to Allow for the folder that you want to add a query to. By default, the Contributors group doesn't have this permission.

Note

Users with Stakeholder access for a public project have full access to query features just like users with Basic access. For more information, see Stakeholder access quick reference.

Supported operators and macros

• Supported operators:

  • Contains Words
  • Does Not Contain Words

• Search methods:

  • Exact phrase: Locate an exact sequence of words.
  • Wildcard character (*): Use only at the end of a partial word or phrase.

• Full-text search: The History field is automatically indexed for full-text search when available.

Query a work item's history

You can use the web portal or Team Explorer to view a work item's history or search for work items based on the History field. Searching the History field returns only work items with changes recorded in that field and does not include changes made to other fields.

Browser

Visual Studio

The Query Editor isn't available when you're connected to GitHub or non-Microsoft Git repository. Also, it isn't available from Visual Studio 2019 under the following conditions:

• If you're set to use the default Landing page experience as described in Set the Work Items experience in Visual Studio 2019.
• If you're set to use the new Git Tool as described in Git experience in Visual Studio.

List items based on the contents of the History field

Use the query editor to include the History field in a query clause.

• Queryable content: Comments entered in the Discussion area.
• Non-queryable content: Change history entries, such as modifications to fields, aren't queryable.
• Alternative search methods: To search for words in the Discussion, Description, or other rich-text fields, use work item search.
• Filter by Change Date: Filter work items by the date they were changed or specify a particular time period.

Filter for

Include these query clauses

---

Items whose History field contains the word "reproducible"

History Contains Words reproducible

Items whose History field doesn't contain the word "beta"

History Does Not Contain Words beta

Items that contain the phrase "stack traces" and were closed but reactivated

History Contains Words stack traces And State Was Ever Closed
And State <> Closed

Items closed within a specified time period

State = Done
And Closed Date > 7/1/2015
And Closed Date <= 7/21/2015

Items I've been associated with

History Contains Words MyName
Or Assigned To Was Ever _ @Me

---

Tips for using the query editor

• Limit query scope by date range: Narrow the date range to improve performance and return only relevant results.

• Use complete words or phrases:

  • Enter full words or exact phrases from the History field.
  • Partial words don't return work items. For example:
    • Searching for "reproducible behavior" finds the item.
    • Searching for "repro" doesn't find it.
  • Use wildcards at the end of words or phrases, such as repro*.

• Be aware of "stop" words:

  • The query editor ignores common words.
  • For more information, see Configure and Manage Stopwords and Stoplists for Full-Text Search.

• Run and validate your query:

  • Select or in the query editor toolbar.
  • Ensure the query returns the expected results.
  • If results are missing, adjust your search terms and run the query again.

View the history of work items

An entry gets made to the History field each time a work item is saved. To view the history of changes, open an existing work item, and then choose the or History, or for some work item types (WITs), choose Details.

The history details shown depend on the platform, version, and client.

Browser

The state change history diagram appears first. To see the entire history of state changes, choose Show all.

Choose an entry in the left pane and view the details of changes made.

Visual Studio

To view only the comments that were added to the log, choose the Discussion Only tab. To view all changes made to the item, choose the All Changes tab, and then choose the show all changes link for a specific date and time.

Filter the history view

The History tab is designed to track all changes made to a work item to support full traceability. The long revision history that results can make it difficult to understand when changes happen to specific fields. To quickly find revisions made to a specific field or by specific people, filter the history view.

Note

The Toggle filter feature requires the New Boards Hub feature, which is enabled by default. To enable this feature, see Manage or enable features.

To review updates by specific people, select their names from the Updated by menu.

To review updates made to one or more fields, select the fields from the Fields menu.

Fields that support history, auditing, and revision tracking

You can use the following fields to filter queries and create reports. Several of these fields are populated with information as a work item progresses from one state to another. Other fields update when the work item is modified. Some fields don't appear on the work item form, but they're tracked for the WITs listed.

Field name

Description

Work item type

---

Changed By

The name of the team member who modified the work item most recently.

Reference name=System.ChangedBy, Data type=String

All

Change Date

The date and time when a work item was modified.

Reference name=System.ChangedDate, Data type=DateTime

All

Closed Date ¹

The date and time when a work item was closed.
Reference name=Microsoft.VSTS.Common.ClosedDate, Data type=DateTime

All

Created Date

The date and time when a work item was created.

Reference name=System.CreatedDate, Data type=DateTime

All

History

The record of changes that were made to the work item after it was created. Every time the work item gets updated, information appends to the history, which specifies the date of the change, who made the changes, and which fields were changed.

Note

History field queries return work items whose Discussion comments or Description fields contain words that match the keywords entered. You can't use the History field to query on changes made to other fields.

You can't add formatted text to the history field. Once you save the work item, you can't alter the history.
The History field, along with the Description, Steps to Repro and Title fields are automatically indexed for full-text search as described in Query fields, operators, and macros.

Reference name=System.History, Data type=History

All

Resolved Date ¹

The date and time when the work item was moved into a Resolved state.

Reference name=Microsoft.VSTS.Common.ResolvedDate, Data type=DateTime

Bug (Agile, CMMI)

Rev

A number that is assigned to the historical revision of a work item.

Note

A work item revision limit of 10,000 is in effect for updates made through the REST API for Azure DevOps Services. This limit restricts updates from the REST API, however, updates from the web portal are not affected.

Reference name=System.Rev, Data type=Integer

All

Revised Date

The date and time when a work item was revised or modified.

Reference name=System.RevisedDate, Data type=DateTime

Shared Parameter, Shared Step, Test Case

State Change Date

The date and time when the value of the State field changed.

Reference name=Microsoft.VSTS.Common.StateChangeDate, Data type=DateTime

All

Test Suite Audit

Tracks other operations performed when modifying a test suite, for example, adding tests to a test suite or changing configurations. This field can be viewed through the History tab or through a separate query. There's a consolidated history view, including changes performed to work items field and changes resulting from related artifacts such as test points and configurations.

Reference name=Microsoft.VSTS.TCM.TestSuiteAudit, Data type=PlainText

Test Suite

Watermark

A system-managed field (not editable) that increments with changes made to a work item.

Reference name=System.Watermark, Data type=Integer

All

Note

1. These fields must be included in the WORKFLOW section of the WIT definition. For example, this syntax is included within the FIELDS definition when transitioning to a Resolved state:

   <FIELD refname="Microsoft.VSTS.Common.ResolvedDate">
      <SERVERDEFAULT from="clock" />
   </FIELD>
   

Related articles

• Use the query editor
• Query fields, operators, and macros
• Query by date or current iteration

REST API

To programmatically interact with queries, see one of these REST API resources:

• Azure DevOps Services REST API Reference
• Queries
• Work item query language
• Fetch work items with queries programmatically