# Link a request to the backlog items that implement it

"Let customers report a claim without calling us" is a business request, not a
backlog item, because a backlog holds how the work gets built rather than what
was asked for.
Link the request to the epic and the feature that carry the work, and the card
answers "how far along is this?" without anyone leaving the board.

## Before you start

- A board over the requests. In the demo that is the board over Business Requests
  in Claims Platform.
- Permission to edit the request itself. Links are added on the work item form,
  and AnyKanban writes as the signed-in user.

## Steps

1. Open the board, select **Settings** in the header, and go to
   **Annotations** under **Cards**.
2. Check that **Show related work items on cards** is ticked. A board over a
   type that sits outside your backlogs, such as Business Requests, has it on
   from the start. With it off, the linked items are never fetched and no
   rollup is computed. Linking is still available from the card menu on any
   board, but only a board with this on can show you the result.
3. Click the card title "Let customers report a claim without calling us" to open
   the native Azure DevOps work item form.
4. On the form, add a link of type **Related** to the epic "Digital first notice
   of loss" (Claims Platform), and a second one to the feature "Self-service
   mid-term adjustments" (Core Insurance).
5. Close the form. The board asks for a refresh straight away instead of waiting
   for the next poll.
6. On the card, select the **link chip** in the chip row, a link glyph with the number of linked items beside it, to expand the list. The same glyph next to the state counts the card's dependencies instead.

## What you should see

Two rows, each a link that opens the native form: the epic and the feature.
Planned work, meaning a linked item whose type sits on some backlog level of its
own project, is listed first, and each row carries a colored dot taken from the
state category that item's own process assigns it.

The rollup at the end of the chip row carries the count, **3/10**, with the
backlog item icon naming the unit: ten backlog items live under the two linked
items and three of them are done. Click it and the breakdown answers level by
level, in full words: **Features 0/3** beside **Backlog items 3/10**. The
rollup's tooltip adds *across 2 linked items*, and the breakdown lists each
one. The unit, icon and word alike, comes from your process, never from us.

![A business request card: the link chip counts two linked items, and the rollup reads 3/10](https://anykanban.com/docs/_img/business-request-rollup.png)

## Notes

Cards link to backlog items as **Related** and never as parent or child. The
direction of a hierarchy link would depend on relative level, Azure DevOps allows
only one parent, and linking upward would silently replace an existing one, so
linking one request to one team's epic and another team's feature at the same
time, as here, is legitimate rather than a conflict. The link is bidirectional in
Azure DevOps: the card also appears on the epic's own Related list.

The link chip and its rows are there as soon as the board paints, and the
rollup appears at the end of the chip row a moment later, once the states of
the linked work have been read. There is no spinner, and the linked rows never
carry a checkbox.

## Related

- [See exactly which items a count came from](https://anykanban.com/docs/follow-work-through-links/see-what-a-count-came-from/)
- [Read a 0/1 rollup](https://anykanban.com/docs/follow-work-through-links/read-a-zero-of-zero-rollup/)
- [Break work down on the card without a backlog](https://anykanban.com/docs/follow-work-through-links/break-work-down-on-the-card/)
- [A board for what the business asked for](https://anykanban.com/docs/guide-business-requests/)