Share Work Items
You can use Team Web Access (TWA) or Team Explorer to send the details of one or more bugs, tasks, or other types of work item in an email message. You can also use any text editor to compose a message, and you can build a hyperlink to a work item and post the hyperlink on a Web page or send in an email message. To learn how to define queries, see Query for Bugs, Tasks, or Other Work Items.
Note
To send an email that contains work items or lists of work items from Team Explorer, configure Office Outlook on your client computer. Also, your system administrator must also have enabled and configured the mail settings for Team Foundation Server. See Support alerts and feedback requests with an SMTP server.
Requirements
To perform these procedures, you must be a member of the Readers group or have your View project-level information or View work items in this node permissions set to Allow. For more information, see Team Foundation Server Permissions.
Send work items by email
In Team Explorer, display a query results list.
In the query results list, perform one of the following procedures:
Task
Procedure
To send a single work item
Open the shortcut menu for the work item that you want to send, and then choose Send Selection to Microsoft Outlook.
To send all work items that appear in the results list
Open the View menu, choose Open query in Microsoft Office, and then choose Send Query to Microsoft Outlook.
(Optional) Open the shortcut menu for a query, and then choose Send Query to Microsoft Outlook.
To send a subset of the work items that appear in the results list
Highlight the work items, open the shortcut menu for any one of those work items, and then choose Send Selection to Microsoft Outlook.
Note
To highlight a contiguous group of work items, press the Shift key when making your selection. To select individual work items, press the Control key when making your selections.
Note
To send all work items listed in a query
(Team Explorer) Open the shortcut menu for the query, and then choose Send to Microsoft Outlook.
(Team Explorer) Open a query, choose
.png "Open in Office")
Open in Microsoft Office, and then choose .png "Send to Mail")
Send Query to Microsoft Outlook. An email message opens that displays the query results in a table. If the query does not contain results, Team Explorer shows an error message.
On the To line, type the email address to whom you want to send the email.
To send the work item to more than one recipient, use commas to separate the addresses.
Compose the message, and then choose Send.
Define a hyperlink that opens a work item in Team Web Access
Define a link that conforms to the following syntax:
**http://ServerName:Port/tfs/CollectionName/TeamProjectName/_workitems#_a=edit&id=**WorkItemNumber
Example: http://fabrikamprime:8080/tfs/DefaultCollection/Phone%20Saver/_workitems#_a=edit&id=123
where:
ServerName specifies the name of the server that is running Team Foundation Server.
Port specifies the port that Team Foundation Server uses. The default value is 8080.
CollectionName specifies the name of the team project collection.
TeamProjectName specifies the name of the team project.
WorkItemNumber specifies the ID of the bug, task, or other work item to which you want to link.
Paste the link into an e-mail message, or encode it on a Web page or a software application form.
Important
To access work items by using this kind of link, team members must have read access to the work item database as specified in the "Required permissions" section previously in this topic.
Q & A
Q: How do I get the hyperlink to a work item in Team Web Access?
A: Use the context menu to copy the shortcut from the open work item.
.png "Copy shortcut link to a work item")
Q: How do I get the hyperlink to a work item in Team Explorer?
A: Use the context menu to copy the shortcut from the open work item.The hyperlink opens the work item in Team Web Access.
.png "Email a hyperlink for a work item")
Q: Can I email selected work items from TWA?
A: No. You can only email selected work items or work item queries from Team Explorer.
Q: Is there a way to delete work items?
A: Yes. You can permanently remove work items from the TFS database by using the witadmin destroywi command. Work items whose state is set to Closed, Done, or Removed remain in the database and can be reactivated. Permanently deleted work items can’t be restored or reactivated.
See Also
Concepts
Choose the Team Foundation client to support your tasks