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title Tutorial: Add Tasks or Other Child Work Items to Checklists
titleSuffix Azure Boards
description Add tasks, subtasks, to do lists, bugs, or other child work items as checklists to your board for lightweight tracking in Azure Board and Azure DevOps.
ms.custom boards-kanban
ms.service azure-devops-boards
ms.assetid D4CE68D6-8056-4CB7-ACFA-1FCD05223040
ms.author chcomley
author chcomley
ms.topic tutorial
monikerRange <= azure-devops
ms.date 07/30/2025

Tutorial: Add tasks or child items as checklist items

[!INCLUDE version-lt-eq-azure-devops]

In this tutorial, you learn how Azure Boards lets you visualize your team's tasks, track progress, and manage work items efficiently. This article provides step-by-step instructions on how to add task checklists to items on your board, enhancing your team's productivity and transparency.

Prerequisites

[!INCLUDE temp]

Learn checklist features

The following image shows various tasks and bugs in progress. Some are still pending, while others are marked as completed. By incorporating the Issue work item type into your Iteration backlog, you can seamlessly add issues as checklists.

:::image type="content" source="media/checklists/board-checklists.png" alt-text="Screenshot shows product-level board with three work items showing child lists.":::

Make use of the following features for checklists.

  • Enable checklists on all boards (product and portfolio levels).
  • Create parent-child links by adding checklist items to work items.
  • For product-level boards:
  • Mark checklist items as “done” to update work item states.
  • Customize checklist features in the Board settings.
  • Automatically assign child items to the sprint or iteration path of parent work items.
  • Add any work item type using the checklist feature.
  • To track work item types as checklists, add them to the next-lower hierarchical backlog. For more information, see Customize backlogs and boards or Process configuration XML element reference.

[!INCLUDE temp]

Add one or more child items to a checklist

In the following example, you add tasks to an item on the product board using the checklist feature. You can use the same procedures to add any other supported checklist item from your board.

  1. From your board, select an item and select :::image type="icon" source="../media/icons/actions-icon.png" border="false"::: > Work item actions > + Add Task. If you already have a work item open, select Add link > New item. For more information, see Link work items to objects.

    :::image type="content" source="media/checklists/add-task-menu.png" alt-text="Screenshot shows the open context menu of work item to add a task.":::

  2. If you have many tasks to add, keep entering their titles and select Enter after each title.

    :::image type="content" source="media/checklists/four-tasks-added.png" alt-text="Screenshot shows four added tasks, added one after the other.":::

  3. Select the task title to add details.

    :::image type="content" source="media/checklists/open-task.png" alt-text="Screenshot shows opening a task by selecting the title.":::

Note

Tasks that you create from your board appear on your sprint Taskboard. Also, tasks that you create from the sprint backlog or Taskboard appear within tasks checklists on your board.

Mark a checklist item as done

When you complete a task or other checklist item, choose the checkbox to change its status to Done, Closed, or Completed.

:::image type="content" source="media/checklists/board-checklists.png" alt-text="Screenshot shows product-level board showing several done child items.":::

The State of the work item is updated from Active to Closed for projects based on an Agile or CMMI process, and from To Do to Done for projects based on a Scrum or Basic process.

Tip

Regardless of the number of workflow states a checklist item might have, marking it as checked transitions it to its closed or completed state.

Expand or collapse a checklist on a board

When you open a board, there's an unexpanded view of checklists. Select the checklist summary to expand and collapse it.

:::image type="content" source="media/checklists/unexpanded-checklists.png" alt-text="Screenshot shows an unexpanded checklist.":::

Reorder tasks, reparent tasks, or reassign tasks to a sprint

You can drag a task within a work item to reorder it. Or, you can drag the task to another work item on the board to reparent it.

:::image type="content" source="../get-started/media/plan-track-work/reorder-task.png" alt-text="Screenshot shows dragging tasks to reorder them.":::

Note

Users with Stakeholder access can't drag-and-drop tasks or reorder and reparent tasks.

Tasks or other child items you add as checklists are automatically assigned to the Iteration Path of their parent work item. To reassign a checklist item to a different sprint, open the item and change its Iteration Path. Or, open the sprint backlogs and drag it to the new sprint using the Planning pane. For more information, see Assign backlog items to a sprint.

::: moniker range="azure-devops"

Reassign a checklist item

Checklist items show the avatar of the team member assigned to the item. You can view the avatar assignment of checklist items, or reassign a checklist item by choosing the item's …Work items action menu and selecting Assigned to.

Note

Avatar images and the Assign to menu option require the New Boards Hub feature, which is enabled by default. For more information, see Manage or enable features.

:::image type="content" source="media/checklists/checklist-actions-menu.png" alt-text="Screenshot shows a list of tasks showing avatars and a checklist of work items action menu.":::

::: moniker-end

Configure your board

To configure or change the layout of your board, see Customize your boards.

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