How to make 'Reason' field always enabled in TFS.

Question

Hi, I'm using Visual Studio Team System 2008 and I want to be able to have the 'Reason' field always enabled for work items. Currently, the 'Reason' drop down is only enabled when changing the 'State'. Once you perform a 'Save' the 'Reason' drop down becomes disabled.

I've tried doing this by modifying the process template, but it can't be done there.

What I'm trying to acomplish is the following, say for a 'Test' task.

1. Initial state is 'Active' with a 'Reason' of 'Pending'. This identifies planned testing work that can't start because development work has not completed.

2. Once development completes the developer would set the reason for the 'Test' task to 'Ready'.

Answer 1

I don't think you can do what you want with the Reason field, as its values are defined within a transition. Its purpose is to give a reason to a state change. Since you are not changing the state of the workitem you do not have access to that field.

It sounds like you are really wanting a "Status" type field. I would suggest that would be better served to create a custom field in your workitem for this, rather than using Reason. Add that your custom field to the Active state of the workitem and set up a Rule of "AllowedValues". This will create a combo that you can change anytime you want.