Azure DevOps Work Item Hierarchy
The Azure DevOps Work Item Hierarchy page gives you a structured view of all work items in a project — Epics, Features, User Stories, Bugs, and Tasks — organized into the parent/child tree that Azure Boards maintains. Use it to see the full scope of a project at a glance, track progress by level, and navigate directly to any item in Azure DevOps.
Use it to answer questions like:
- Which Epics are still in progress and how many child items remain open?
- How many story points are planned across a Feature’s User Stories?
- How much effort was estimated for everything under an Epic?
- Which Tasks are unassigned within a given User Story?
Getting Started
Navigate to Issue Hierarchy → Azure DevOps in the sidebar. The Azure DevOps data source must be configured and at least one sync must have completed before the page is usable.
If the data source is not configured, the project dropdown will show an error. Go to Settings > Data Sources and add an Azure DevOps connection first.
Selecting a Project
Click the Select a project dropdown. The list is populated from your Azure DevOps organization. Select the project you want to explore.
Filtering Work Items
The optional filter input accepts a WIQL WHERE clause that is appended to the base query. For example:
[System.WorkItemType] = 'Bug'— show only bugs[System.IterationPath] UNDER 'MyProject\Sprint 12'— show items in a specific sprint[System.AssignedTo] = @Me— show items assigned to the current user
Leave the field empty to load all non-removed work items in the project.
The clause is appended with AND and must be valid WIQL. Syntax errors will produce an error message from the Azure DevOps API.
Loading the Hierarchy
Click Load (or press Enter in the filter field) to fetch the work items. The page retrieves all matching items and resolves their parent/child relationships into a tree.
Understanding the Hierarchy Table
Work items are displayed in a grid, organized by their parent/child relationships in Azure Boards. Each row has the following columns:
| Column | Description |
|---|---|
| ID | Work item ID, linking directly to the item in Azure DevOps. Resolved items appear with a strikethrough. |
| Title | The work item title. |
| Type | The work item type (Epic, Feature, User Story, Bug, Task, etc.), shown as a color-coded badge. |
| Status | The current workflow state, shown as a status badge. |
| Progress | For parent items, a color-coded bar showing how many children are done, in progress, and not yet started. |
| Assignee | The display name of the assigned user, if any. |
| Estimate | Original Estimate, converted from the hours Azure DevOps records into a duration. For parent items, shows the sum (Σ) of the item’s own estimate and all its descendants’, with the item’s own estimate disclosed on a second line. |
| Points | Story points. For parent items, shows the sum (Σ) of the item’s own points and all its descendants’, with the item’s own points disclosed on a second line. |
Type Colors
| Color | Type |
|---|---|
| Purple | Epic |
| Blue | Feature |
| Green | User Story |
| Red | Bug |
| Yellow | Task |
Status Categories
States are grouped into three categories that drive the status badge color and the progress bar:
| Category | Examples |
|---|---|
| Done | Closed, Done, Resolved, Completed |
| In Progress | Active, In Progress, Committed, In Development, In Review, Approved |
| Not Started | New, To Do, and any other state |
Collapsing and Expanding
Parent items (those that have children in the result set) show a chevron to the left of their ID. Click it to collapse or expand the children. All parents start collapsed so you get an overview first — expand the ones you want to drill into.
Items whose parents are outside the result set (for example, because a WIQL filter excluded the parent) appear at the root level.
Navigating to Azure DevOps
Every work item ID is a clickable link that opens the item directly in Azure DevOps. The link uses the organization URL from your data source configuration, so no additional setup is needed.
Tips
- Use the filter to scope large projects. The page retrieves at most 10,000 work items. If a project exceeds that limit the load will fail with an error — use a WIQL filter (for example, narrow by iteration or area path) to reduce the result set and load again.
- Collapse all, expand selectively. The table starts with all parents collapsed. Expand only the branches you are interested in. Clicking Load resets the expanded state.
- Points and Estimate columns. Parent items display a recursive sum (Σ) through all descendants, not just their direct children, and that sum includes the parent’s own value. Where a parent carries a value of its own, a second line shows it (for example
3 own) so the Σ can be reconciled against the rows beneath it. Leaf items show their own value if set, with no Σ. - Watch for double counting. Because Σ includes every level, a Feature that carries its own points or estimate on top of its User Stories’ will inflate the Epic’s total. The
ownline is how you spot it: if a parent’s own value looks like a duplicate of the work its children already describe, the roll-up is counting it twice. - An empty cell means unestimated. Azure DevOps writes
0for an unset Original Estimate, which ActivityPulse renders as blank rather than0m— a zero-effort item and an unestimated one are different things.