Search work items by text

Searches for work items that contain the given text in title, description, or other searchable fields. Supply the search phrase in the WITH clause. Use this for ad-hoc lookup when you know a keyword but not the work item ID. Results depend on the project and search indexing.

Standard SQL query example

This is the base query accepted by the connector. To execute it in SQL Server, you have to pass it to the Data Gateway via a Linked Server. See how to accomplish this using the examples below.

SELECT * FROM search_workitems_by_text WITH (SearchText='Text that I want to search for')

Using OPENQUERY in SQL Server

SELECT * FROM OPENQUERY([LS_TO_AZURE_DEVOPS_IN_GATEWAY], 'SELECT * FROM search_workitems_by_text WITH (SearchText=''Text that I want to search for'')')

Using EXEC in SQL Server (handling larger SQL text)

The major drawback of OPENQUERY is its inability to incorporate variables within SQL statements. This often leads to the use of cumbersome dynamic SQL (with numerous ticks and escape characters).

Fortunately, starting with SQL 2005 and onwards, you can utilize the EXEC (your_sql) AT [LS_TO_AZURE_DEVOPS_IN_GATEWAY] syntax.

DECLARE @MyQuery NVARCHAR(MAX) = 'SELECT * FROM search_workitems_by_text WITH (SearchText=''Text that I want to search for'')'
EXEC (@MyQuery) AT [LS_TO_AZURE_DEVOPS_IN_GATEWAY]