Work Item Terminology

Work Item

A work item is something that has to get done. You can create your own custom work item types. Some examples are: Project, Task, Support Ticket, Sprint, Milestone, and Bug. These can be anything you want. Each work item type that you create can have unique fields and you can even make these required. A work item can have assignees, dependencies, budgets, dates, and more. They can also be billable and invoiceable.

Work items can be nested inside of other work items. For example, here are three different types of work items that demonstrate how they might be nested:

• Project
  • Task
    • Sub-Task

The screenshot below shows a work item page, which happens to be a "Project" type work item (as indicated in the upper left of the page). This work item includes three sub work items: Task 1, Task 2, and Task 3. Notice that Task 1 has two sub work items: Subtask 1 and Another Subtask:

We use the terms listed below as a general way to refer to the relationships between nested work items.

Parent

A parent work item refers to a work item that contains one or more other work items. For example, Task is the parent of Sub-Task. Likewise, Project is the parent of Task.

Child

A child work item (sometimes referred to as a "Sub Work Item") is one that is nested directly inside of another work item. For example, Sub-Task is a child of Task.

Root

The root work item is the topmost work item in a nested tree of work items. For example, Project is the root of Sub-Task. Likewise, Project is the root of Task (Project is also its parent).

Descendants

Descendant work items are all of the work items nested inside of another work item, including deeply nested work items. For example, Task and Sub-Task are both descendants of Project.

Ancestors

Ancestor work items are those that contain another work item. Both Project and Task are ancestors of Sub-Task.

Path

The path is an ordered list of the ancestors for a given work item. For example, the path of Sub-Task is Project / Task. Sometimes this is referred to as "breadcrumbs".