Link controls, restrictions, and field reference

Work item forms contain these tabs for linking: Implementation, Links, All Links and Test Cases. This topic describes the controls and data fields that are associated with creating links and hyperlinks.

For more information about how to use links, see Link work items. To add link types, see Manage link types [witadmin]. To customize the link controls and restrictions, you modify the definition of the LinksControlOptions for a work item type, see Define link controls to restrict link relationships.

Link toolbar buttons

Each tab has a toolbar with buttons. The links control toolbar for Team Web Access, shown here, has a subset of these controls:

Links control toolbar (Team Explorer)

These buttons become available only after you perform a specific action:

• The button to create a work item that is linked to the open work item () becomes available only after you save the open work item.

• The buttons to open the list of work items in a query () and Open in Microsoft Office become available only when at least one work item is listed in the links control tab.

• The buttons to open a work item (), edit a link (), and delete a link () become available only after you click one or more work items listed in the links control tab.

The Storyboards links control restricts users to add links only to storyboards or network shared files. With this control, you can add a new link, open a linked item, and delete a link. Also, only the Team Web Access version displays the Start Storyboarding link within the toolbar.

Storyboards links control (Team Web Access)

Link controls and restrictions

All tabs that support creating links between work items are implemented by using the LinksControl element on the work item form. This element controls filtering and restricting the types of work items to which you can link, the types of links that you can create, and whether you can link to work items in another team project. For more information about how to restrict links, see LinksControlOptions Elements.

Scrum process template

The Scrum process template defines the link control restrictions shown here. For descriptions of the work item types, see Visual Studio Scrum process template for Visual Studio ALM.

Agile process template

The Agile process template defines the link control restrictions shown here. For descriptions of the work item types, see Agile process template work item types and workflow.

CMMI process template

The CMMI process template defines the link control restrictions shown her . For descriptions of the work item types, see CMMI process template work item types and workflow.

Default data fields in lists of links

All lists of links display these data fields:

• Work item ID

• Work Item Type

• Title

• Assigned to

• State

• [Link Comment]

You can add or remove columns from the list of links, and you can customize the default columns and the column order. For more information, see LinksControlOptions Elements.

For more information about these fields, see Titles, IDs, Descriptions, and History field reference and Assignments and workflow field reference.

The following table describes the [Link Comment] data field. For information about data types and default field values, see Define and modify work item fields.

Additional fields that support query and reporting

Some fields do not appear on the work item forms but are tracked for each type of work item when you link them. You can use these fields to filter queries and create reports.

Reports that require links between work items

The default process templates in TFS provide reports that require you to create links between specific work items.

See Also

Concepts

Work item field reference for Visual Studio ALM