Before you can start tracking work or doing any sort of source code control, you need to create a project in the Azure DevOps environment.
The project is where all of the following will take place:
- Source code management
- Work management
- Test planning and execution
- Bug tracking
- Development process analysis and insights
You can create an Azure DevOps project for free, which comes with a limit of five basic users. If you need to add more than that, then you will need to purchase additional users. You can read more about adding basic users, and what those users can do, at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/organizations/billing/buy-basic-access-add-users?view=azure-devops.
You can go beyond the five-user limit by adding more users. There are multiple types of users available:
- Stakeholder: These users have limited access to features. You can add an unlimited number of stakeholders for free.
- Basic: These users have access to almost all of the features. By default, you can have up to five basic users for free, after which you will need to purchase more.
- Basic + Test Plan: These users have access to all the features that a basic user can access, and also, they can access Azure test plans.
- Visual Studio Subscription: These are users that have an active Visual Studio or MSDN subscription.
You can see more details about what the preceding user types can access at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/organizations/security/access-levels?view=azure-devops.
Within an organization, you can create multiple projects. A project can be defined as either private or public. With a private project, every user that needs access to it must be configured with an Azure DevOps license. In a public project, however, users can access it in read-only mode without having a license.
When you create a new project, if you plan on using it for managing work, then you can define what work item process you are going to use:
- Basic
- Scrum
- Agile
- Capability Maturity Model Integration
You can find more details on the different work item processes at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/devops/boards/work-items/guidance/choose-process?view=azure-devops.
The work item process that you choose will affect how your team manages work within Azure DevOps, so you may want to try out a few different processes in order to find the one that works best for you.