Define features and epics, organize your backlog
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While many teams can work with a flat list of work items, sometimes it helps to group related items into a hierarchical structure. You can start with several major features or scenarios and break them down into smaller deliverables. Or, if you have an existing backlog, you can begin to organize it with features and epics.
Portfolio backlogs
The following image shows a features portfolio backlog that consists of a flat list of feature work items.
You can use portfolio backlogs to do the following tasks:
- Bring more order to your backlog
- Manage a portfolio of features that different development and management teams support
- Group items into a release train
- Minimize size variability of your deliverables by breaking down a large feature into smaller backlog items
Portfolio backlogs let you quickly add and group items into a hierarchy. You can also drill up or down within the hierarchy, reorder and reparent items, and filter hierarchical views. Portfolio backlogs are one of three classes of backlogs available to you. For more information, see Visibility across teams.
The following image shows the Agile process backlog work item hierarchy. User Stories and Tasks are used to track work, Bugs track code defects, and Epics and Features are used to group work under larger scenarios.
Each team can configure how they manage Bugs—at the same level as User Stories or Tasks—by configuring the Working with bugs setting. For more information about using these work item types, see Agile process.
Prerequisites
Backlogs automatically get created when you create a project or add a team. Each team has access to their own product, portfolio, and sprint backlogs as described in About teams and Agile tools.
- You must be added to a project as a member of the Contributors or Project Administrators security group.
- To add or modify work items, you must be granted Stakeholder access or higher.
- To view or modify work items, you must have your View work items in this node and Edit work items in this node permissions set to Allow. By default, the Contributors group has this permission set to Allow. For more information, see Set permissions and access for work tracking.
- To use the Planning pane, your team administrator must define iteration (sprint) paths and configure team iterations.
Note
Users with Stakeholder access for public projects have full access to backlog and board features, like users with Basic access. For more information, see Stakeholder access quick reference.
- You must be added to a project as a member of the Contributors or Project Administrators security group.
- To add or modify work items, you must be granted Stakeholder access or higher.
- To view or modify work items, you must have your View work items in this node and Edit work items in this node permissions set to Allow. By default, the Contributors group has this permission set to Allow. For more information, see Set permissions and access for work tracking.
- To use the Planning pane, your team administrator must define iteration (sprint) paths and configure team iterations.
What makes a feature or epic?
Epics and features are higher level containers. Typically user stories or backlog items roll up into features, and features roll up into epics, so keep this information in mind when you name your features and epics.
As you define your features and epics, consider the time required to complete them. In general, you should complete backlog items, such as user stories or tasks, within a sprint. Features and epics may take one or more sprints to complete.
View a backlog
To focus on one level of a backlog at a time, select the name of the backlog. If you don't see all three backlog levels—Epics, Features, and Backlog items—enable the backlog levels for your team.
Sign in to your organization (
https://dev.azure.com/{yourorganization}) and go to your project.Select Boards > Backlogs.
To select another backlog, open the selector and then choose a different team or select the View Backlog directory option. Or, enter a keyword in the search box to filter the list of team backlogs for the project.
Tip
Select the
star icon to favorite a team backlog. Favorited artifacts (
favorited icon) appear at the top of the team selector list.Select either Stories (for Agile), Issues (for Basic), Backlog items (for Scrum), or Requirements (for CMMI) as the backlog level.
(Optional) Choose which columns should display and in what order: select the
actions icon and select Column options.
Sign in to your organization (
https://dev.azure.com/{yourorganization}) and go to your project.Select Boards > Backlogs.
To choose another team, open the selector and select a different team or choose the
Browse all backlogs option. Or, you can enter a keyword in the search box to filter the list of team backlogs for the project.
Choose the portfolio backlog that you want, Features. or Epics.
(Optional) To choose which columns should display and in what order, choose the
actions icon and select Column options. You may want to add the Iteration Path to the set of columns that appear on your backlog. For more information, see Change column options.
From your web browser, open your team's backlog. (1) Select the team from the project/team selector, choose (2) Work, (3) Backlogs, and then (4) the portfolio backlog of interest, which is Features or Epics.
To choose another team, open the project/team selector and select a different team or choose the Browse option.
Select Epics to see a list of all epics defined in your team's active area paths.
Tip
For more information, see Select backlog navigation levels for your team.
Add features and epics to your backlog
Just as you can add items to your product backlog, you can add items to your features and epics backlogs.
Select the
New Work Item, enter a title, and then select Enter or Add to top.
Repeat step #1 to capture all your ideas as work items.
In the following example, we added six features.
You can add epics in the same way. Open the Epics backlog from the backlogs selector.
To add a feature, enter a title and choose Add. If you don't see the Add link, choose New to open the quick add panel.
Repeat this step until you've captured all your main ideas.
Add details to a feature or epic
Open each item by double-clicking, or highlight the item and select Enter. Then, add the info that you want to track. Enter as much detail as possible, so your team can understand the scope, estimate the work, develop tests, and ensure that the final product meets acceptance criteria.
Field
Usage
The area of customer value addressed by the epic, feature, or backlog item. Values include:
- **Architectural—technical services to implement business features that deliver solution
- Business (Default)—services that fulfill customers or stakeholder needs that directly deliver customer value to support the business
Provide a relative estimate of the amount of work required to complete a Feature or Epic. Use any numeric unit of measurement your team prefers. Some options are story points, time, or other relative unit.
Specify a priority that captures the relative value of an Epic, Feature, or backlog item compared to other items of the same type. The higher the number, the greater the business value. Use this field when you want to capture a priority separate from the changeable backlog stack ranking.
A subjective unit of measure that captures how the business value decreases over time. Higher values indicate that the Epic or Feature is inherently more time critical than those items with lower values.
Specify the date by which to implement the feature.
Add child items
You can add child items to your features from any backlog. You can also add child user stories (Agile), or product backlog items (Scrum) or requirements (CMMI) from the Kanban board for features. And, you can add child features from the Epic board. For more information, see Kanban board features and epics. To quickly parent or reparent children from a backlog, see Organize your backlog, map child work items to parents.
Whenever you see the Add icon, you can add a child item. The work item always corresponds to the hierarchy of work item types defined for your project.
For more information, see Configure your backlog view and About work items and work item types.
To add a work item, choose 
Add, and choose from the options provided.
In the following image, we added a product backlog item as a child to the Customer Web - Phase 1 feature.
Whenever you see the
Add icon, you can add a child item.
The work item(s) always corresponds to the hierarchy of work item types defined for your project.
For Scrum projects, your hierarchy looks like the following example.
For more information, see the following articles:
- Teams can set bugs as tasks
- Enable bugs to show up on your team's backlog
- Your project's process and resulting work item types view.
Add portfolio backlogs and boards
To add a portfolio backlog or board, customize your process, add new work item types, and then configuring your backlogs and boards. You can also add or modify the fields defined for a work item type (WIT) or add a custom WIT. For more information, see Customize an inheritance process and Customize your backlogs or boards (Inheritance process).
To add a portfolio backlog or board, either customize your inherited process or modify your XML definition files. You can also add or modify the fields defined for a work item type (WIT) or add a custom WIT. For more information, see the following articles based on the process model used to update your project:
Inheritance process model:
On-premises XML process model:
To add a portfolio backlog or board, define more work item types, and then customize your process configuration. You can also add or modify the fields defined for a work item type (WIT) or add a custom WIT. For more information, see Customize the On-premises XML process model and Add a portfolio backlog level.
Display rollup progress counts, or totals
Product and portfolio backlogs support rollup columns. You can add one or more rollup columns to display progress bars, counts of descendant work items, or totals of select numeric fields. Your settings persist for each page that you customize and are only valid for your views.
- Progress bars indicate the percentage of descendant items within a hierarchy that are closed or completed.
- Counts display the total number of descendant items.
- Totals provide a sum of numeric fields, such as Effort, Story Points, Completed Work, or Remaining Work of descendant items.
The following example shows progress bars for a portfolio backlog.
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