Mike Azocar

So what happens when you create a long list of Bugs or Task in Team System and realize that you have not used the correct naming convention or you have assigned the wrong priority? Well Team System gives you an easy way to handle batch updates of work items. Because Team System integrates into Microsoft Excel, you are able to use Excel to handle such changes. Even better, you can select work items within Team System and edit them directly in Excel.

Do update several work items at once, do the following:

1. Open the Team Explorer window.
2. Expand the Work Items folder.
3. Expand the Team Queries folder.
4. Select a query and open it by double clicking on the name.
5. Highlight one or more work items and right click.
6. Select "Open Selection in Microsoft Excel" from the context menu.
7. Voila!

Once you are in Excel, you will see a window that looks similar to this:

You can now make changes to your work items one at a time or in batch with Excel's easy interface. Once you are finished, click on the Publish button on the Team Explorer tool bar. This will synchronize the changes made in Excel with the Team Foundation Server.

The Team Explorer tool bar also gives you the ability to show and hide Work Item fields, link to other Work Items, attach files to Work Items, and select Work Item Query Language (WIQL) queries on the Team Foundation Server to bring down work items to Excel.

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Happy Coding!