We have a custom field on Bugs and User Stories of 'Traiged by', and the devs shouldn't start work on the ticket until it has been triaged by a product owner. What I'd like to do is prevent the state transition from New to Active when 'Triaged By' is null. Is this possible? I can't see any rules on the Workflow Transition dialog.
TFS 2017 Update 3 RTM/15.117.27024.0 on-premise. Agile process template.
No, it's not able to do this.
You could not change a state based on filed valume/rules. You could also not able to skip/prevent transitions by specific field volume.
For System fields, there is some restriction for them. Refer to this link for details:
System fields have System.Name reference names, for example System.Title and System.State. TFS restricts customization of these fields, except for these instances:
Transitions define the valid progressions and regressions between states. Users can specify only those states that are valid based on the transitions that you define for the current state.
In the other word, Transitions tell the TFS which state can be followed by the current one.
A transition always has a from and to state. You could not ignore or skip the transition and select a totally different state. It's not available at present.
For more details of this related concept, you could take a look at our official tutorial here-- Workflow design guidelines