This is a complete guide on how to connect and sync your Elements and Azure DevOps work items. This guide covers permissions, installation, troubleshooting, and use-cases.
What is the value of Elements for ticket management?
What is the value of Elements for ticket management?
Elements.cloud is a Change Intelligence Platform: Exceptional for analyzing stories and scoping changes.
Not built for Sprint Planning and Boards: Not designed to replace specialized project management tools.
Enterprise-level Organizations: Larger teams require more robust planning and execution tools
Elements.cloud can act as the analytical engine that refines and scopes work items, making them ready for execution in other specialized platforms:
Creating Well-Analyzed Stories/Work Item types: Use Elements.cloud to break down and analyze user stories or tasks.
Scoping the Full Impact of Changes: Understand the ripple effects of each change across the organization.
Full scope of work items in your ticketing tools: Thanks to Elements.cloud you can discover and document hidden to-dos. You can therefore ensure that there are no gaps in your scope of tickets and you understand fully the cost and scope of the project.
License prerequisites
You need to have Azure DevOps connection license which currently is part of our Unlimited license
Required permissions
Following permissions are required to successfully connect Elements to Azure DevOps:
Elements:
Space administrator permission to set up Azure DevOps connection
Requirement manager permission for account used for authentication to create and update change records in Elements based on Azure DevOps integration
Azure DevOps:
Project Collection Administrator permissions or
A custom group with Project Administrator permission
Connect Azure DevOps Project
Goto "Space Settings" and select "Connections" from the left hand menu
Then choose the AZURE tab from the list of tabs at the top of the screen then click "NEW CONNECTION" to add a new development project for Azure
Authenticate Azure DevOps connection
Authenticate Azure DevOps connection
On the Create new Azure connection window, specify the connection name, description (optional), Azure URL, Azure username (this can either be your email address or the organisation name) and Azure API token (the scope of the the token should cover the only the Work Items).
Azure URL should follow this format "https://dev.azure.com/{organisation name}". Replace the place holder with your Azure organisation name
Azure username is the email address
Azure API token: scope of access associated to the token should be for work items.
Configure the integration
Once the Azure connection is established, you need to configure how Azure and Elements will work together. To do this, select a project from the list of Azure Projects available, and you will be asked to confirm the project choice and load the project data.
Then click 'Add Work Item Type' and choose which issue type to integrate with either user stories in Elements.
We currently support the integration of work item types with user stories in Elements
After the Work item type mapping is completed, a screen with the list of Elements workflow statuses for either user story or business requirement appears where status, and field (standard and custom) mapping can be done.
You can set up and integrate multiple work item types for both user stories and business requirements in Elements. But currently, we support the integration with user stories
Key considerations during status and field mappings
Workflow:
You can only map statuses one to one, meaning a status in Azure can only be mapped to one status in Elements.
When Elements status is unmapped, then when a ticket is moved to that status in Elements, user cannot send updates to Azure
When Azure status is unmapped to Elements, then when a ticket is moved to that status, changes will not be reflected in Elements
Fields:
If you are mapping picklist fields, ensure that the picklist values in both Elements and Azure are spelled the same and are listed in the same order. Otherwise the integration will fail.
Register the webhook
If the Azure user credentials used to set up the development project belongs to the Project Collection Administrator group in Azure then after selecting the Azure project you can click "Register webhook" to set it up automatically.
You will see a green notification message informing you that the webhook was successfully registered, and it will continue to show it as long as the webhook is successfully enabled. If already registered you will not need to re-register.
Enable project
The connected project can be enabled once the field mapping is completed. Connected project can also be disabled.
Disabling the project removes Azure reference from all stories that were already sent to Azure. It will not delete any stories or data, rather it will only remove the connection between them.
Importing existing Azure tickets
Go to list of user stories in Elements main menu, Click 'Import' button in the top right corner of the screen to see a list of options where you can import from. Chose 'Import from Azure' from the dropdown to import existing Azure tickets
Choose the Dev project where you want to import from, select the work item type and the mapped status of the work item types you wish to import from Azure.
If you have one active Azure Project connected, the Dev project field is auto-filled when you select 'Import from Azure'
Depending on the number of user stories being imported, this operation may take some time. Once the operation is complete, you will receive a notification.
If you receive a notification that some or all issues failed to import, click on the notification to download a detailed report that will list a reason for each failure.
Send Elements ticket to Azure
In the main menu, select 'Changes', then open the stories tab. Select the record you wish to send to Azure, the details tab shows on the right side. In the details tab, find the 'Azure integration' field and press 'Send to Azure' button.
Where multiple work item types are connected, you will have a choice of selecting the work item type to send the ticket as to Azure.
Limitation: bulk-sending of stories to Azure is not currently supported.
Delete Azure Connection
At any time, you can delete connected projects by clicking the bin icon next to the connected project you wish to delete. Then type in the Azure connection name of to confirm deletion.
The delete action is irreversible however, it does not delete any stories on Elements rather, it removes the Azure reference to the stories.
Troubleshooting/ FAQs
I cannot see the Azure project I want to connect to
I cannot see the Azure project I want to connect to
Most likely you do not have the permission to view the Azure project you wish to connect to. Check that the user that connect the project belongs to the 'Project Collection Administrator' group in Azure
The data is not flowing correctly between fields
The data is not flowing correctly between fields
When field mappings are not working properly it is usually related to one of 3 things.
The field in Azure is not present in all the issue types screens
The field types in Elements does not match the corresponding field types in Azure DevOps
The field type is not supported
I cannot send stories from Elements to Azure
I cannot send stories from Elements to Azure
Check that the status of the story in Elements matches the predefined workflow. Also, check that the 'Dev Project' field is not empty as this specifies the project to send stories to from Elements.
I cannot see a field during mapping
I cannot see a field during mapping
Check that you have created the field in Elements. You can add a missing field by following the steps below
Go to Space Settings → Customizations → Fields → Switch To Edit
Then you can add the missing fields which mirrors the ones in Azure