Visual Studio REST API Iteration and Area ID's

Question

I am working with the VSO REST API and have a question on how Iteration and Area ID\'s are assigned. Specifically, why is it when I assign a work item to the root Iteration

Answer 1

There are three ways of identifying an Area (everything I post equally applies to Iterations also). The Path (string), the ID (int) and a Guid. each of them are used in different ways, and have different ramifications.

For example renaming an Area, does NOT change it's identity, therefore does not update a work item (the path returned for in a workitem is dynamic).

It is also possible to delete and recreate and identical path, but it will have a different ID.

The GUID is used primarily for the Excel Reports (such as are parent of the SharePoint portal)

Depending on how you want things to react determines the appropriate element to use.

I have not seen any issues with the ID that you mention, and if you could create a simple repro, I would be glad to look at it.

david(dot)corbin(at)dynconcepts(dot)com

Answer 2

I have never done this with ID. I only use the path. In the classification service you can get the node by path easily enough.

For example, using the REST API - you can access this url to get the data about a specific iteration:

/DefaultCollection/[Project Name]/_apis/wit/classificationnodes/iterations/[Release X]/[Sprint Y]

Note that trying to access the default iteration path (the project name instead of a specific iteration) will return an error:

/DefaultCollection/[Project Name]/_apis/wit/classificationnodes/iterations/[Project Name]

will give :

{"$id":"1","innerException":null,"message":"VS402485: The node name is not recognized: [Project Name]","typeName":"Microsoft.TeamFoundation.WorkItemTracking.Server.Metadata.WorkItemTrackingTreeNodeNotFoundException, Microsoft.TeamFoundation.WorkItemTracking.Server","typeKey":"WorkItemTrackingTreeNodeNotFoundException","errorCode":0,"eventId":3200}

So if you do batch work, you have to filter those before querying the api.