How to create a different level of backlog item in Visual Studio Team Services?

Question

According to this blog post by Brian Harry, the agile portfolio management aspect of TFS2013 and Visual Studio Team Services has a feature to create different levels of backlog items.

For instance, a backlog of business initiatives can be broken down into a backlog of scenarios and then into a backlog of user stories, etc. You can manage the backlog at each level and trace the relationships.

and

All of this will be included in TFS 2013 and is available on Team Foundation Service today for you to start to explore.

I can't see anywhere to do it on Visual Studio Team Services. According to this page on MSDN you can do it via witadmin by exporting an existing work item type, modifying it, and reimporting it.

However trying to do this with Visual Studio Team Services results in the following error:

TF237113: You don't have enough permissions to complete the import operation.

Which seems to be a common complaint, e.g. there are lots of comments about it at UserVoice.

Is it possible then in Visual Studio Team Services to add a different level of backlog item?

Answer 1

Visual Studio Team Services doesn't allow you to customize the process template and/or Work Item definitions. That's why witadmin isn't working.

However, the Portfolio Management features are available in Team Services. If you are using the Scrum Process Template you will have Features that are broken down into a backlog of PBI's, and the PBI's are broken down into Tasks. You do not have the ability in Team Services to add additional layers like you do in TFS on-premise.