Stop Managing Programs/ Projects in Excel - Meet the Azure DevOps Epic Budget Table

Most portfolio leaders face the same frustrating problem: delivery teams manage their work in Azure DevOps, but budget planning and spend tracking live somewhere else.

Excel files, SharePoint lists, and slide decks become the system of record for finance, while Azure DevOps remains the system of record for execution. When the two inevitably drift apart, traceability breaks, and leadership wastes valuable time reconciling numbers instead of making decisions.

Budget governance typically fails for one simple reason: budget data is not where the decisions are made.

To solve this, I built the ADO Epic Budget Table, a free extension that brings financial planning directly into the place where the work already lives.

Get it free on the Visual Studio Marketplace | View the source on GitHub

What is the ADO Epic Budget Table?

The extension adds a dedicated Budget tab directly to your Azure DevOps Epics. It allows teams to plan spend by Fiscal Year and Quarter (Q1–Q4), see budget health instantly, and store computed totals back into queryable Epic fields for portfolio-level views.

Plan spend across Q1-Q4 for each fiscal year in a single, structured view.

1. A Structured Budget Table Inside the Epic

Instead of maintaining a separate spreadsheet, teams enter planned spend for each fiscal year across Q1–Q4 directly within the Epic. It feels like a spreadsheet, but it stays connected to the delivery work.

2. Instant Budget Health Visibility

As quarterly numbers are entered, the extension automatically updates a summary banner showing:

• Approved Budget
• Total Committed Spend
• Remaining Budget
• Percent of Budget Consumed

Over-budget Epics are flagged immediately with the exact overage amount, making budget health visible without exporting data or manually calculating totals.

3. Portfolio Reporting Without Power BI

The most powerful feature is under the hood: computed values are written directly into native numeric Epic fields on every save.

This means leadership can get portfolio-level budget views using standard Azure DevOps WIQL queries and dashboard widgets. You don’t need a separate reporting stack, Power BI model, or Power Automate flows.

For example, you can easily query:

• “Which Epics are spending in FY26?”

• “What is the total planned spend for FY27 across all approved Epics?”

• “Which Epics are above 90% budget consumed?”

A Simple Executive Use Case

The Scenario: Quarterly Portfolio Review

Before: The PMO exports a spreadsheet from multiple sources. Teams email updated budget numbers. Leadership reviews stale totals and spends the meeting asking for data corrections.

After: Teams update their budget plans directly in the Epic’s Budget tab. Totals are computed and saved into Epic fields automatically. A portfolio dashboard in Azure DevOps instantly shows total planned spend by fiscal year, Epics at risk (e.g., ≥ 90% consumed), and over-budget Epics. Leadership reviews the dashboard and focuses on strategic decisions, not data cleanup.

Custom Field Prerequisites

Before installing the extension, create the following custom fields on your PMO Epic work item type in Organization Settings > Process > [Your Process] > PMO Epic.

Required Field

This is the only field the extension cannot function without. It stores the entire budget table as a serialised JSON blob. Without it, the control will not render.

• Field Name: Financials Table JSON

• Reference Name: Custom.FinancialsTableJson

• Data Type: Text (Multiple Lines, Plain Text)

• Control Option: JSON Storage Field

• Required: Yes

Optional Fields (Strongly Recommended for Portfolio Reporting)

These fields are optional in the control’s Options tab, but without them computed totals are never persisted to the Epic and you lose all portfolio query and dashboard capability.

Estimated Cost

• Field Name: Estimated Cost

• Reference Name: Custom.EstimatedCost

• Data Type: Decimal

• Control Option: Estimated Cost Field

• Note: Maps your existing approved budget field. No new field needed if already present.

Total Committed Spend

• Field Name: Total Committed Spend

• Reference Name: Custom.TotalPlannedSpend

• Data Type: Decimal

• Control Option: Total Planned Spend Field

• Note: Sum of all quarterly entries across all fiscal years.

Budget Remaining

• Field Name: Total Budget Remaining

• Reference Name: Custom.TotalBudgetRemaining

• Data Type: Decimal

• Control Option: Budget Remaining Field

• Note: Approved Budget minus Total Committed Spend.

Percent of Budget

• Field Name: Percent of Budget

• Reference Name: Custom.PercentOfBudget

• Data Type: Decimal

• Control Option: Percent of Budget Field

• Note: (Total Committed Spend / Approved Budget) x 100.

Currency

• Field Name: Currency

• Reference Name: Custom.Currency

• Data Type: Text (Single Line)

• Control Option: Currency Field

• Note: Defaults to USD if not mapped. Supports USD, EUR, GBP, INR, JPY, and 15+ others.

Per-Fiscal-Year Fields (Optional, for Year-over-Year Analysis)

Create one decimal field per fiscal year your program spans. These enable WIQL queries such as total planned spend in FY27 across all Epics.

• Planned Spend FY25 (Custom.PlannedSpendFY25, Decimal)

• Planned Spend FY26 (Custom.PlannedSpendFY26, Decimal)

• Planned Spend FY27 (Custom.PlannedSpendFY27, Decimal)

• Planned Spend FY28 (Custom.PlannedSpendFY28, Decimal)

• Planned Spend FY29 (Custom.PlannedSpendFY29, Decimal)

• Planned Spend FY30 (Custom.PlannedSpendFY30, Decimal)

For full portfolio reporting with queries, dashboards, and budget health tracking, create all five computed fields plus the per-FY decimal fields for the fiscal years your programs span.

How to Set It Up

Implementation is intentionally lightweight and uses standard Azure DevOps configuration. All computation runs in the browser, and data is stored securely in your Azure DevOps fields.

Step 1: Install the extension Grab it from the Visual Studio Marketplace.

Step 2: Create the Epic fields In your Organization Settings, add a few custom fields to your Epic work item:

• A JSON storage field for the table data (Text, multiple lines)

• Numeric fields for computed totals (Decimal)

• An existing “Estimated Cost” field

Step 3: Add the control to the Epic form Open your process layout, create a new page called “Budget”, and add the ADO Epic Budget Table custom control.

Step 4: Configure the mapping Map your custom fields in the control options so the extension knows where to store the table data and computed totals.

Why This Beats Spreadsheets

• Single source of truth: The budget plan is part of the Epic record.

• Always current: Totals update immediately when the Epic is updated.

• Portfolio ready: Stored numeric fields support native queries and dashboards.

• Low overhead: No external databases, no extra licensing costs.

If your PMO manages budget approvals at the Epic level, or if you run multi-year programs where the timing of spend matters, this extension will save you hours of manual reconciliation.

Try it out today: 👉 Install from the Marketplace 👉 Contribute on GitHub

If this saves your team time, please consider starring the GitHub repo or leaving a review on the Marketplace!