Triaging work items in the Web interface

In some cases, the submitter of a work item speaks with the developer responsible for the functional area and assigns the work item to that developer. However, it is also common that the submitter leaves the work item unassigned, and a member of the team area associated with the work item category must triage the work item.
About this task
Triaging is the process of analyzing work items that have been submitted to add them to an iteration, assign ownership, and set priority. The exact steps for triaging a work item vary depending on the work item type and its workflow. The following steps are typical for triaging the Defect work item type as defined in the Scrum process.
  1. To triage a work item, first run a query that retrieves work items that have been submitted but not assigned to a specific owner. Click an entry in the results grid to open it. Alternatively, you can click the Action icon in the Action column of the results grid to open the work item in an inline editor.
  2. Verify that the Filed Against field is set correctly. If the work item belongs to a different category, change the Filed Against field. If you are not a member of the team associated with the new category, click Save to save the change. Otherwise, continue.
  3. Click the Find Potential Duplicates icon to see if another work item has already been submitted about the same issue. If a duplicate work item exists, set the state of one of the work items to Resolved and set its Resolution to Duplicate.
  4. The Owned By property lists all members of the team area associated with the work item category. Select an owner from that list or click More at the bottom of the list to search for a member of another team. Optionally, select a priority level. The priority level identifies the importance of the work item from the owning team's perspective. Optionally, set the Planned For property to a planned iteration for resolving the work item. Optionally enter a value in the Due Date property. To add a comment, click Add Comment in the Discussion section and enter your text.
  5. Click the Approvals tab to add an approval. An approval is a request for other users to review, approve, or verify the work that is done to resolve the work item. From the New Approval drop-down list, select Approval, Review, or Verification and optionally specify the due date. Click Add Approvers to specify the user or users responsible for approving the resolution. You might want to create different approval types for different users. For example, you might want to have a lead developer review the owner's proposed resolution, and a test engineer validate the delivered fix.

    Another use of approvals is to remind team members to perform a common task. For example, you might create a work item for developers to update the copyright year in their files. You could add each developer as an approver to the work item. When they finish making the change in their files, they change the State for their approval to Approved.

  6. Click Save to save your changes.

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