# Open the real work item form

Some changes do not fit on a card: an attachment, a discussion comment, three
fields a rule insists on at once. Click the title of a card, say "Kestrel Logistics: claim 2026-04417 stuck after adjuster upload", and the real
Azure DevOps work item form opens, with every field, rule and extension your
process already has.

## Steps

1. Click the card's **title**. If you are on the keyboard, focus the title and
   press **Enter**.
2. Make the change on the form as you would anywhere else in Azure DevOps.
3. Close the form.
4. The same works from the other titles the board shows: a row in the **List**
   view, a checklist row on a card, and a row under the card's **link chip**
   (the link glyph with a count, which lists the card's Related links).

## What you should see

The host's own work item dialog, not a copy of it. Nothing about editing a work
item is reimplemented here. When you close it, the board refreshes within a
moment rather than waiting for its ordinary cycle, so a state change, a new
field value or a link you just added is on the card almost at once. Opening a
checklist row is even narrower: that one child is re-read on close.

## Notes

The title is a real link to the work item, the same as a title anywhere else in
Azure DevOps. A plain click opens the form as a dialog over the board, so you
never lose your place. **Ctrl+click** (**Cmd+click** on a Mac) or a
**middle-click** opens the item in a new tab instead, at its ordinary work item
address, and **Shift+click** opens it in a new window. That helps when you want
to keep several items open side by side. The same holds for a title in the List
view, on the aging chart's point card and in a baseline's list of items that
left the board. Because it
is a link rather than a button, **Space** scrolls the board as it does
everywhere else; **Enter** is what opens the item.

On the card face, the title is the only way to the form. The card menu has a
second one: its first entry, **Open**, opens the same form. You reach that menu
by right-clicking the card, or with its **More options** button (the **⋯** that
appears when you hover the card). The rest of the card does other things: a
click on the card body opens nothing, a field row opens an inline editor, the
state name opens a list of the type's states, and the dependency icon shows or
hides this card's dependency arrows.

This is also where a rejected change belongs. When a drag or an inline edit
comes back with a rule message, whether a transition that needs a reason or a
field that becomes required on the way to Done, the form is where the rule can
actually be satisfied, because it is your process's own form: the required
fields, the rules and any work item extensions you have installed are all
present. A home-made editor would have to reimplement that validation and would
diverge from it on the first custom process, so the product does not have one.

## Related

- [Change a field without opening the item](https://anykanban.com/docs/edit-in-place/change-a-field/)
- [Add an item without leaving the board](https://anykanban.com/docs/edit-in-place/add-an-item/)
- [User Guide](https://anykanban.com/docs/user-guide/)