6. Update and monitor your Taskboard

Azure DevOps Services | Azure DevOps Server | Azure DevOps Server 2022

Adding tasks to backlog items tracks the work required and estimates effort for each team member. The capacity tool shows how much work your team can commit to. To compare capacity with planned work effectively, define and estimate tasks for each backlog item.

• Add as many tasks as needed to capture all the work for each backlog item.
• Create separate tasks for different activities like design, coding, testing, content creation, and sign-offs.
• Team members typically add their own tasks and set estimates.
• A development lead can define initial tasks for a story or requirement.
• Set effort estimates to gauge total work and align with your team's available capacity.

Prerequisites

Open the sprint taskboard for your team

1. From your project, select Boards > Sprints, select the correct team, and then select Taskboard.

   

   To switch teams, open the team selector and select a different team, or select Browse all sprints. You can also enter a keyword in the search box to filter the list of team backlogs.

   

2. To select a different sprint, open the sprint selector and select the sprint you want.

   

   Only sprints selected for the current team's focus appear in the list. If the sprint you want isn't listed, select New Sprint from the menu, and then select Select existing iteration. For more information, see Define iteration (sprint) paths.

Customize the taskboard

Each team can customize their Taskboard in the following ways:

• Add or rename columns.
• Customize cards to show other fields or change card color based on field criteria.
• Show bugs on the Taskboard, either as backlog items or as tasks. When you track bugs as tasks, they appear on sprint backlogs and Taskboards at the same level as tasks.

An administrator can customize the Taskboard for all teams:

• Add a custom workflow state to the task WIT for a process
• Add a custom work item type to the Taskboard for a process

Taskboard controls

Control	Function
Backlog	Switch to sprint backlog view
Board	Switch to Taskboard view
Capacity	Switch to capacity planning
Group by Stories/People	Switch grouping of cards by backlog items or team members
Person	Filter tasks to show items assigned to all or a selected team member
	Open board settings
/	Enter or exit full screen mode

For more information, see Backlog keyboard shortcuts.

Review progress in daily scrum meetings

During your daily Scrum, filter your Taskboard to focus on items of interest.

• Group by Backlog items or Stories to monitor progress of your product backlog items, stories, requirements, or bugs.
• Group by People to monitor progress of individual team members.

Use the Person filter to focus on work assigned to individual team members.

Show progress on items

This view shows which items are nearing completion and which items haven't started.

1. To show cards based on their backlog-to-task groupings, select View options and select Stories (for Agile), Issues (for Basic), Backlog items (for Scrum), or Requirements (for CMMI).

   

2. Select Collapse All or Expand All rows. To focus on a particular item and its tasks, selectively expand and collapse a row.

   

Show a team member's progress

This view displays each team member's completed and remaining work, helping you identify who might need help with their sprint tasks.

To filter tasks for a specific team member, select the filter icon, and then select their name from the Assigned to filter box.

Group tasks by team members

This view shows all tasks associated with each team member. Backlog items don't appear, only individual tasks.

1. Select the view options icon and select People.

   Only team members with tasks assigned to them appear. Their tasks display as cards under each column state.

   

2. To filter tasks for a specific team member, select Filter , and then select their name from the Assigned to filter box. For more information, see Interactively filter backlogs, boards, queries, and plans.

   

Update tasks during the sprint cycle

The Taskboard makes it easy to update both task status and remaining work.

Update a task's status

Drag tasks to a downstream column to show whether they're in progress or completed.

When you move a task to the Done or Completed column, the system automatically sets Remaining Work to 0 in all processes except CMMI. If more work remains, change the State back to In progress or To do and enter a value for Remaining Work.

Update remaining work

Update Remaining Work before the daily Scrum meeting to keep the team informed and ensure a smoother burndown chart.

Each team member reviews their tasks and estimates the work remaining. If a task takes longer than expected, increase the Remaining Work value. Remaining Work should always reflect the team member's current estimate of effort remaining.

Close out a sprint and update your taskboard

At the end of the sprint, complete these final tasks:

• Set Remaining Work to zero for all completed tasks.
• Update the status of all completed backlog items.
• Drag incomplete backlog items and tasks to the next sprint or back to the product backlog.

When you drag an incomplete item to the product backlog or a future sprint, you update the iteration path of all unfinished child tasks to match the new iteration path.

For more information, see End of sprint activities.

Reduce the number of items on the Taskboard

If you exceed the maximum number of items allowed on your Taskboard, a message prompts you to reduce the count. The maximum includes work item types in the Requirement and Task categories.

Move items to the backlog or another sprint to reduce the count. When you move a parent PBI or user story, all active child tasks (State not equal to Done or Closed) automatically move with the parent item.

• From the Taskboard, drag the PBI or user story from the first column onto the backlog or a future sprint.
• From the sprint backlog, multi-select the items to move, select the context menu, and then select the target iteration.

Use AI to update sprint progress

If you connect the Azure Boards MCP Server to your AI agent in agent mode, you can use natural language prompts to update and monitor sprint progress.

Next step

Related content

• Assign backlog items to a sprint
• Interactively filter backlogs, boards, queries, and plans
• Scrum best practices
• Sprint planning
• Schedule sprints
• Sprint burndown
• Customize a sprint Taskboard
• Capacity planning