How do I convert my flat list to a tree list when trying to bulk import from Excel 2013 to TFS?

Question

I've got a lot of product backlog items that I want to load into TFS. We've already got most of these defined in an Excel spreadsheet, so I thought that bulk importing from Excel to TFS as described here would be the best way to go.

If I just wanted a flat list, I'd be fine. Excel 2013 is a bit different than the screenshots in that article, but it worked pretty much the same. I went to the TEAM menu option and selected a new list, and then built the list from my selected query. I got a screen with my existing work items that looked like this:

According to the article I linked above, if I want to be able to add sub-tasks I need to convert the flat list to a tree list. I'm supposed to do this "by adding a tree level." However, here's the problem with that:

I've tried clicking in various cells in case something needs to be selected to "enable" this option, but my blind clicking has yielded no luck. Am I just terrible at following instructions, or does Excel 2013 have some quirk that I need to work around?

What do I need to do to enable this so that I can bulk import sub-tasks?

Answer 1

The Work Item Query you select needs to be a tree-based query. I'm guessing the WI Query you are selecting is a flat-list, that's why those features aren't lighting up in Excel.

Answer 2

To build off of Dylan Smith's answer, here's how to get your Work Item Query into a tree-based form (so you can add a tree level). This works with Team Foundation Server 2012 and higher.

Here is where to go within TFS 2012. Using the web interface, you should navigate to the query you want to load into Excel. From there, go to the 'Editor' section of the query, then there you can change the type of query to be "Tree of Work Items".

With that done, you can now load the list into Excel (using the Team tab, as described elsewhere). You can then Add Tree Levels, Add Child, etc.