Functional work item search

TFS 2017

Functional work item search command filters extend your ability to refine your search of work items based on assignment, work item type, specific fields, and more. This is in addition to the filter functions documented in Get started with search. Work item search is a built-in feature available to all Azure DevOps users.

By using Work Item Search, you can do the following tasks and more.

Prerequisites

• All users can use work item search.

Search by work item ID

Enter the work item ID in the Azure DevOps title bar to quickly go to it. Searching for a work item ID opens the work item in a modal dialog, providing quick access to read and edit work items.

Full text search across all fields

You can easily search across all work item fields, including custom fields, which enables more natural searches. The snippet view indicates where matches were found.

• Use simple search strings for words or phrases. Work item search matches derived forms of your search terms; for example, a search for "updating" also finds instances of the word "updated" and "update". Searches aren't case-sensitive.
• When you search from inside a project, the default is to search only within that project.
• While searching from inside a team, the default is to search only within the default area path of that team.
  • When you have one project selected, you see a list of area paths in that project for which you have read access - you won't see any projects and area paths for which you don't have read permission
  • Select area paths in the tree to narrow your search if necessary.
• The selected projects are always at the top of the list. Notice that hit counts are also shown for projects that aren't selected.
• Open the search results in a new browser tab from either the main search function or by selecting Ctrl + Shift + Enter.

Work item search best practices

• Use a text search across all fields to efficiently locate relevant work items. Text search is useful when you're trying to, for example, search for all work items that had similar exception trace.
• Use the quick in-line search filters on any work item field to narrow down to a list of work items in seconds. The list of suggestions helps complete your search faster.

Search vs. managed work item queries

You have two ways to find and list work items: managed queries and the main search function. If you're looking for a single work item, use the main search. If you want to generate a list of work items to triage, update, chart, or share with others, use a managed query.

With the main search function, you can search against a more fully indexed set of fields than that of managed queries.

To get started, see the following articles:

• View and run a query
• Use search
• Define a query

For specific managed query examples, see Query quick reference, Example queries.

Apply supported functions to work item search

1. Fine-tune your search by specifying the fields to search. Enter a: and a user name to search for all items assigned to that user.

   

   See the following quick filters that you can use:

   • a: for Assigned to:
   • c: for Created by:
   • s: for State
   • t: for Work item type

2. Start entering the name of a field in your work items; for example, enter ta.

   

   The dropdown list shows work item field name suggestions that match user input. These suggestions help you complete the search faster. For example, a search such as tags:Critical finds all work items tagged 'Critical'.

3. Add more filters to further narrow your search, and use Boolean operators to combine terms if necessary. For example, a: Chris t: Bug s: Active finds all active bugs assigned to a user named Chris.

4. Narrow your search to specific types and states, by using the drop-down selector lists at the top of the results page.

5. Widen your search across all projects, or narrow it to specific types and states. Use the filter to show the selector lists.

   

6. Select the criteria you want in the drop-down selector lists, or search across the entire organization.

   

7. Sort the results as you need using the drop-down list of field names, work item types, or by relevance.

   

Quick filters for matching in specific fields

Quick inline search filters let you refine work items in seconds. The dropdown list of suggestions helps complete your search faster. Mix and match the functions to create quick powerful searches.

Scope projects and area and iteration paths using filters

Filters make it easy to narrow the search to specified projects and area paths.

Narrow the search to a specific location using the proj, area, iteration, path, and comment filters:

See more of the work item

You can quickly get a full screen view of the selected work item using expand and shrink in the toolbar. However, another way to see more of the work item, while you can still select work items from the list of matching results, is to hide the left column filter pane by choosing < at the top left of the column. Use > to restore the filter pane.

If you're using a portrait orientation screen, use the Preview pane: Right link at the top right of the window to display the code below the search results list.

Search Work Items with REST API

You can use APIs to extend or supplement the capabilities listed in this article. For information about Work Item Search with REST API, see Fetch Work Item Search Results.

Next steps

Related articles

• Get started with Search
• Search code
• Search artifacts and packages
• Search FAQs