Loading your Azure DevOps Data
FYI, the above video is for our legacy loader only. A new video will be coming for the new data loader.
Our new Data Loader is out! The new data loader offers two ways to load your data:
Board History will show only the data related to the chosen board.
Work Item History will show all data related to the work item regardless of which board(s) it was on and when.
How to Load Data in Azure DevOps
To load your Azure data, click on the folder icon and choose the dropdown option labeled “Load Azure data.”
Load Team Board (by Column) is now our legacy loader. You can find it under the folder drop-down menu.
You can pull data from two options: Board History and Work Item History.
Loading by Board History
Create a data set:
Step 1: Select your team
Step 2: Choose which Board you want to load.
Step 3: Choose whether to include items in nested area paths or not.
Step 4: Filter by creation date (optional)
Once you have selected the box to only load issues created after, click on the calendar to choose the date.
Once you are satisfied with your selection you can press NEXT. This will take you to the Choose Additional Fields window.
Loading by Work Item History:
You can now see data from your issues' entire history and not just that of what is on the current board.
You are no longer forced to lose historical data when you make changes to your board design.
You can measure flow for multiple teams at once allowing a higher-level view of flow.
Create a data set:
Step 1: Select your team or teams
Step 2: Choose whether to include items in nested area paths or not.
Step 3: Filter by creation date (optional)
Once you have selected the box to only load issues created after, click on the calendar to choose the date.
Once you are satisfied with your selection you can press NEXT.
Choose Additional Fields:
Here is the list of fields we pull automatically
You can also add fields that might be relevant to your analysis.
Once you have selected all the needed fields, press add fields
You will then see the list of all the default fields and the one you just added
Once you are satisfied with your selection you can press NEXT
Check Workflow Mapping:
Our workflow mapper creates a workflow stage (aka column) for each status (item in the column). You should order the columns to model the lifecycle of work. If you see the image below, Releasing should come before Resolved so you would drag the column and drop it between Active and Resolved. This is very much like configuring your board, except that you cannot reuse statuses in multiple workflow stages.
Accurately modeling your workflow is the most critical part of measuring flow as it defines the workflow that we’re measuring work through. You want the stages of the lifecycle to be in linear order from left to right. Need to manage cyclical work or want other tips? Read our blog post.
Why is this step important?
We are now pulling the historical states from all the work items and not just their current states. This gives us more accurate data and less data loss. A work item can now have moved through different boards, we will be able to follow how it moved through your workflow. Until now, we would have lost everything that happened outside of the current board the item is in. Same if you changed your board and deleted a column, all the time spent in this column would have been deleted. But not anymore!
How does it work?
Each column represents an ActionableAgile workflow stage.
Each column contains one or more workflow states.
Even though Azure doesn’t allow you to map more than one state to your board columns, you can override that here. For instance, in your closed column you can have every state that represents closed such as Closed, Done, Cancelled, and/or Abandoned
Unmapped states are states found in your work items' history that are not currently mapped to your board.
You can change the configuration of the board by:
Deleting a column:
Creating a new column
Merging columns
Once you are satisfied with the mapping, you can press FINISH
At this point, ActionableAgile should load your data and present you with the Cycle Time Scatterplot chart.
Your data are now loaded!
If you have any questions about this process, please submit them to our help desk.
Related articles