Rhythms connects directly to your Azure DevOps work items to automatically track progress on Key Results and Initiatives. Instead of manually copying completion percentages or story point totals, Rhythms uses an AI-powered setup process to intelligently calculate progress based on your work item structure.

This guide is for teams using Azure DevOps to manage work and want their OKR progress to reflect actual work item status without manual updates.

New to auto-updates? Learn about the general auto-update workflow in How to Set Up Auto-Updates before diving into Azure DevOps-specific setup.

Azure DevOps auto-updates work best for tracking work completion and effort-based progress. Rhythms automatically calculates how much work is done, how many story points are complete, or how close your team is to finishing planned work items without manual data entry.

This connection is ideal when your Key Results or Initiatives measure outcomes that directly map to Azure DevOps work item completion. For example, "Launch customer authentication system" or "Complete security remediation project" work well because they track discrete work items with clear completion states.

Teams typically connect Azure DevOps when they want quarterly or multi-month strategic goals to reflect the cumulative work tracked in Azure DevOps. If your organization already tracks execution in Azure DevOps, connecting it to Rhythms eliminates duplicate reporting while keeping your OKR progress aligned with actual delivery.

What works well: Completion percentages, story point totals, effort tracking, and monitoring work item states across multiple sprints or releases.

Current limitations: The integration focuses on basic progress tracking and doesn't currently support time-based metrics (like SLA resolution times), priority filtering (P0/P1/P2), or custom field tracking. We're evaluating enhancements for these use cases based on user needs.

Workspace Requirement: Your workspace administrator must enable the Azure DevOps integration. This feature requires the MCP integrations capability to be enabled at the tenant level. If you don't see Azure DevOps as an available integration option, contact your workspace administrator. Learn more: Enable Integrations for Your Workspace

Azure DevOps Access: You need access to the Azure DevOps organization and project containing the work items you want to track. Rhythms connects using your personal Azure DevOps credentials, so you'll only see work items you can already view in Azure DevOps.

Numeric Key Results: Auto-updates work with Key Results and Initiatives that track numeric progress. Rhythms calculates a percentage or total based on work item data, so metrics tied to project completion or feature delivery are ideal candidates.

The setup process is covered in detail in How to Set Up Auto-Updates. Here's what's specific to Azure DevOps:

After authentication, the Rhythms AI assistant opens a chat window to help locate the right work items. Instead of navigating complex queries or filters yourself, you describe what you want to track in natural language.

Example conversations:

"Track completion of all user stories in the Customer Portal project assigned to the Platform team"

"Calculate progress based on story points for the Authentication Epic"

"Monitor feature work items in the Mobile App release that are in Active or Resolved states"

The assistant searches your accessible Azure DevOps organizations, projects, and work items to find matches. It confirms what it found and asks clarifying questions if needed (like which iteration to focus on or whether to include child work items).

Rhythms automatically selects the best calculation method based on your work item structure and the data available. Rhythms evaluates four approaches and picks the one that most accurately represents progress:

Completion-based: Calculates the percentage of work items marked as Done or Closed. Best for tracking milestone completion or bug resolution where each item counts equally.

Effort-based: Sums story points or effort values across work items. Ideal when your team estimates work and you want progress weighted by effort rather than item count.

Completed Work: Uses the "Completed Work" field to track hours invested. Useful when measuring actual time spent against a target.

Remaining Work: Calculates progress based on how much work is left. Works well for burndown scenarios where the goal is reducing remaining effort to zero.

You don't choose the calculation method manually. Rhythms AI recommends an approach based on your work item types, available fields, and how you described the goal. If the recommended approach doesn't fit, tell Rhythms what you're trying to measure and it will suggest alternatives.

The Rhythms AI assistant helps you identify which Azure DevOps work item to track. During the conversation, you describe what represents progress (for example, a specific Epic, Feature, or User Story whose child work items represent the work to be completed).

Important: Once you select a parent work item, Rhythms calculates progress based on ALL child work items under that parent. You cannot selectively filter which children count toward progress using tags, area paths, or custom fields.

📌 Current Capability Note

Rhythms tracks ALL child work items under your selected parent item. We cannot currently filter by:

This means if you select an Epic with 50 child items, all 50 contribute to progress calculations. There's no way to exclude certain items.

We recognize this limitation and are actively working on filtering capabilities to better match how teams organize work in Azure DevOps.

Working within current capabilities: If you need tracking that focuses on specific priorities or tags, note that this isn't currently supported. Consider whether the parent work item naturally contains the right scope for your KR. If precise filtering is critical for your use case, you may want to use manual check-ins with data from Azure DevOps queries, or connect a Power BI or Excel report that pre-filters the data.

During setup, you can narrow the initial search by specifying:

These search filters help Rhythms locate the right parent work item to track. However, progress calculations include all children of that parent regardless of their attributes.

Once the setup completes, Rhythms displays a Connected to Azure DevOps indicator on your Key Result or Initiative. The system syncs work item data once daily at 3 AM UTC.

What updates automatically: Current progress based on work item states, effort totals, or completion counts. Rhythms pulls the latest data and recalculates progress using the method selected during setup.

What you still provide: Context through check-ins. Auto-updates handle the numbers, but you explain what changed, obstacles encountered, or adjustments needed. Learn more: Effective Check-ins to Track OKR Progress in Rhythms

Historical data preserved: Rhythms maintains a history of progress updates. Even if you later disconnect the integration, past auto-updates remain visible in your Key Result's timeline.

Verification: Review the first update after the daily sync to confirm Rhythms is pulling the right data. If the progress percentage doesn't match your expectations, you'll need to disconnect and reconnect with clearer instructions about what you're measuring.

To change your Azure DevOps configuration, you'll need to disconnect and reconnect. This disconnect-and-reconnect process is the same across all auto-update integrations. Learn more: How to Set Up Auto-Updates

Before you disconnect:

If the numbers look incorrect but the work item selection is right, first verify the work item hierarchy in Azure DevOps. Sometimes unexpected progress values come from child work items you didn't realize were included.

Yes. Each connection uses the individual's Azure DevOps credentials, so multiple team members can track related work items across different Key Results. Progress calculations are independent per Key Result.

Auto-updates will stop, and Rhythms displays an error. Reconnect with an account that has access, or disconnect the integration and switch to manual check-ins.

Not currently. Each Key Result or Initiative supports one auto-update connection at a time. Choose the primary data source that best represents progress.

Work item data refreshes once daily at 3 AM UTC. Changes in Azure DevOps will appear in Rhythms after the next daily sync.

First, verify the parent work item's children in Azure DevOps (progress includes all child work items). If the calculation method doesn't fit your needs (for example, you want effort-based but it's using completion-based), disconnect and reconnect with clearer instructions about what you're measuring. Historical data is preserved during reconfiguration.

Not in a single auto-update connection. Each connection tracks work items from one project. If your Key Result spans multiple projects, consider whether separate Key Results (one per project) or manual check-ins work better.

No. Rhythms has read-only access. It pulls data to calculate progress but never changes work item states, fields, or comments.

Not currently. The integration doesn't retrieve priority fields, so you cannot filter calculations by priority level. Priority filtering is being evaluated for future enhancement. For now, if you need priority-based tracking, consider using manual check-ins with data from Azure DevOps queries that filter by priority.

Not currently. The integration doesn't retrieve resolution or closed dates needed for SLA calculations. For time-based metrics, consider using Azure DevOps dashboards or exporting data to Power BI/Excel, then connecting those tools to Rhythms instead. Time-based tracking is being evaluated for future enhancement.

Not currently. Progress calculations include all child work items under the tracked parent. We're working on adding filtering capabilities. For now, choose parent items that naturally contain the scope you want to track, or consider manual updates for complex filtering needs.