TFS 2013 - Renaming the Features Portfolio Backlog to Epics

One of the great Agile Planning features of TFS 2013 is the ability to use a hierarchy of backlogs. Out of the box, the “Features” backlog sits atop the Product Backlog, and you can associate PBIs and User Stories to Features.  One common request I hear from customers is, can I rename the “Features” backlog to something else, such as Epics. You certainly can, and I’ve created a sample Powershell script to automate it a bit.

This script will export the process config, edit the xml to rename the Features backlog to Epic, import the process config, and then call the renamewitd command. Finally, it performs an IISRESET, which is required.  Change the variables at the top to suit your needs.

And here is the end result:

Special thanks to MVP Chaminda Chandrasekara for blogging the steps over here: https://chamindac.blogspot.com/2013/10/tfs-2013-rc-rename-work-item-type.html

Thanks,

-Dan

Comments

• Anonymous
  February 27, 2014
  hi this is great. Do you know if it is possible in a similar way to actually replace the term "backlog" with something else (ie pipeline). My manage feels backlog has negative connotations...... :-/

• Anonymous
  March 06, 2014
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  June 26, 2015
  We would like to have Epics and Features.  How do you do that?

• Anonymous
  June 26, 2015
  Hi Anne: if you're using TFS 2013 on-premises, you can add multiple hierarchical backlogs (Epics -> Features -> PBI, etc). See here: msdn.microsoft.com/.../dn217880.aspx Visual Studio Online (our hosted "TFS as a Service") has both Epics and Features by default.