Managing my current work

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Use the Current Work section in My Work view to manage work items assigned to you in a current iteration. Modify work items and arrange them in order of planned completion. The My Work Load indicator shows your remaining available hours in the iteration compared to the estimated hours for your unresolved work items. Adjust the work item's priority and estimated duration. Right-click a work item in this section and select Show Work Time to modify the corrected estimate and time spent on the work item.

Before you begin

Add My Work view if it is not currently displayed. Click Window > Show View > Other > Work Items > My Work.

About this task

To display the Current Work section, click the Down Arrow icon (View menu) in the My Work view toolbar, and select Visible Sections > Current Work. For basic actions and behavior in this section, see the common features list in Managing work items in My Work view. These features include displaying work item descriptions and properties, modifying properties, saving changes, reading alerts, navigating to a work item in the editor, and showing recent news for a work item.

For quick access to your teams' plans, click the Open Current Work icon (Open current work) in the Current Work section heading.

Arranging planned work

Work items are sorted by time, grouped by time periods (past, yesterday, today, tomorrow, next week). You can rearrange the order of planned work items by dragging them in this section, or right-click a work item and use the Plan for menu.
  • Past: Work items resolved in the current iteration are displayed in the order in which they were resolved. The past work is grouped by period, such as Earlier Today, Yesterday, and Last Week. This offers quick access to recently resolved work.
  • Current Planned: Work items planned for Today and future periods, such as Tomorrow and Next Week. When you drag items to a group or modify estimated labor for work items, the order of the work items in these periods shift accordingly. For current work, the next unresolved work items are shown at the top of the view, by default. You can also scroll to today's work by clicking the Show Today icon (Show today) in the My Work view toolbar. Future work is sorted in the order in which the user intends to resolve the work. This section can be considered your work queue, which you typically resolve from top to bottom. Start dates are estimated by the order of work items, their duration, and your planned work hours and absences. Work items without estimates are marked with a warning. Planned absences are displayed in this section with the work items. Right-click a work item in this section to add a work item above or below the selected work item.

My Work Load indicator

The Current Work section includes a personal work load tool, the My Work Load indicator. To display or hide the My Work Load indicator or select a timeline, click the Down Arrow icon (View menu) in the Current Work section.

The indicator shows a ratio of your remaining available hours in the iteration compared to the estimated hours for unresolved work items that are assigned to you. Resolved work items and past work are not considered when computing the load. Overbooked hours (when estimated work exceeds the time available) are shown as a negative value in red; excess available hours are shown as a positive value in green. The percentage of estimated work items is shown, reflecting the quality of planning. The load indicator is filled vertically as the percentage of work item estimation increases.
This image shows the My Work Load indicator with green bar, available hours compared to estimated hours of assigned work, and percent of work items that have estimated hours.

Hover the mouse pointer over the load indicator for a complete summary of the work status.