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Titles, IDs, Descriptions, and History Field Reference

You use the Title and ID fields to uniquely identify work items in a list. You use the Description and History fields to provide additional information that is needed to implement the work and to track changes. These fields track information for all work item types defined in the process templates provided with Team Foundation Server.

After a work item is created, you can modify each of these fields except for ID. When you create and save a work item, the ID is assigned by Team Foundation and cannot be changed. 

The Description, History, Steps to Repro and Title fields are automatically indexed for full-text search. See Query Fields, Operators, Values, and Variables.

In this topic

  • Fields that appear on work item forms

  • Fields that support revision tracking

  • Additional fields that support query and reporting

Fields that appear on work item forms

The following table describes the fields that are used in tracking detailed information and historical revisions made for a work item. 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

ID

The unique identifier that is assigned to a work item. Work item IDs are unique across all team projects and within a team project collection.

System.Id

Integer

Dimension

True

Title

A short description that summarizes what the work item is and helps team members distinguish it from other work items in a list.

System.Title

String

Dimension

True

Description

The long description of a work item. This field provides more details about the work item than the title provides.

Note

Upon upgrade to Team Foundation Server 2012, the Description field was changed from a field type of PlainText to HTML. Using the witadmin changefield command you can revert the data type for this field. See Manage Work Item Fields [witadmin].

System.Description

HTML

None

False

History

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

You can also add formatted text to the history field.

System.History

History

None

False

Repro Steps

The steps that are required to reproduce unexpected behavior. (bugs only)

Microsoft.VSTS.TCM.ReproSteps

HTML

None

False

System Info

Information about the software and system configuration that is relevant to the bug, code review, or feedback.

Microsoft.VSTS.TCM.SystemInfo

HTML

None

False

Fields that support revision tracking

You can use the fields in the following table to filter queries and create reports. These fields are updated with information every time that a work item is modified. These fields do not appear on the work item form, but they are tracked for all types of work items.

Field name

Description

Reference name

Data type

Default value of the reportable type attribute

Default value of the index attribute

Changed By

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

System.ChangedBy

String

Dimension

True

Changed Date

The date and time when the work item was modified most recently.

System.RevisedDate

DateTime

None

False

Rev

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

System.Rev

Integer

Dimension

False

Additional fields that support query and reporting

You can use the fields in the following table to filter queries and create reports. The following fields do not appear on work item forms, but they are tracked for all types of work items.

Field name

Description

Reference name

Data type

Default value of the reportable type attribute

Default value of the index attribute

Node Name

The name of the parent node to which this work item belongs. The value for this field is the same as the team project.

System.NodeName

String

None

False

Team Project

The team project to which this work item belongs.

System.TeamProject

String

Dimension

False

Work Item Type

The name of the work item type.

System.WorkItemType

String

Dimension

True

See Also

Concepts

Find Bugs, Tasks, and Other Work Items

Work Item Field Reference for Visual Studio ALM