Visual Studio Team System (VSTS) Blog - by Neno Loje : For Project Managers

How to integrate Microsoft Security Development Lifecycle (SDL) into your TFS process template

neno — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 11:13:00 GMT

Downloads:

Additional information:

Using TFS to develop custom SharePoint applications (revised)

neno — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 20:11:05 GMT

The first article is created during a real world customer engagement and answers dozens of frequently asked questions and how-tos in a real world context vs. theoretical discussions. The 2^nd package addresses very common questions around setting up and using TFS features for a MOSS development project.

VSTS Rangers - SharePoint Server Custom Application Development: Document Workflow Management Project
Read about the real-world design, construction, and deployment of a custom SharePoint Server 2007 application to a mid-market enterprise customer using Team Foundation Server as an ALM platform.

VSTS Rangers - Using Team Foundation Server to Develop Custom SharePoint Products and Technologies Applications
Learn how to use TFS to support your SharePoint application development, and provide an integrated development environment and single source code repository for process activities, integrated progress reporting, and team roles.

Additionally to the existing guidance from Patterns & Practices the two teams worked together to align these stories:

patterns & practices: SharePoint Guidance

The SharePoint Guidance contains a sample implementation of an intranet application based on SharePoint Server 2007 that demonstrates solutions to many ALM challenges.

Setup up an e-mail notification on other user's check-ins

neno — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 02:19:19 GMT

Open Alerts Editor (required TFS Power Tools to be installed locally).
Create new alert.
Choose “Check-In of a specific file happens”:
Enter a name for the alert subscription, the destination e-mail address, desired team project name ($/Teamproject), if applicable, as well as your account name (to be excluded).
The “Filter Expression” (2nd tab) looks now similar to:

'Artifacts/Artifact[starts-with(translate(@ServerItem, "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ", "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz"), "$/playground")]' <> null AND "Committer" <> 'TFS\neno'

Tool for creating direct links to TSWA

neno — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 03:38:55 GMT

Buck Hodges from Microsoft blogged about all the possible links you can construct to point to TSWA pages.

For example the following URL opens the Work Item Editor:

Open the existing work item with ID 1234: http://mytfs:8090/wi.aspx?id=1234

To make it simple I created a small tool that helps you construct those URLs in an easy way:

You can download the source from here:

File Attachement: WebAccessLinkCreator.zip

Specifying a user upfront or: How is the developer supposed to know who will be the responsible tester?

neno — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 09:00:00 GMT

In a small team this sounds like oversize, but in mid-sized large teams it's common that you do not know who is going to be the tester.

Looking at the Bug workflow from MSF Agile:

while "Active" the project lead decided if and when the bug is going to be fixed and assigns it to the responsible developer.
between "Active" and "Resolved" is where the developers implements the fix.
between "Resolved" and "Closed" is where the tester verifies the fix.

When the developer finishes coding he changes the state from "Active" to "Resolved", e.g. by checking in and associating the changeset with the work item.

But by doing so the work item is still assigned to him. In our scenario he doesn't know who will be the responsible tester to verify the fix. So who knows?

The project lead might have that information. So either we assign it back to the project lead to make him assign it to as tester or we make the project lead specify the tester upfront (with the ability to change it afterwards if necessary).

In this example we'll implement the second approach.

Objective

Ask for the Tester when creating the bug and automatically u.se it for the transition from "Active" to "Resolved"

Required Work Item Customization

Step 1: Add a new string field to hold the tester
In this example we will make it a required field (<required/>) and ensure that it contains a valid user (<validuser/>).

<FieldDefinition> type="String" name="Tester" refname="TeamSystemPro.Samples.Tester">
<REQUIRED />
<VALIDUSER />
</FieldDefinition>

Step 2: Add a rule to the transition from "Active" to "Resolved"
Automatically copy the value of the tester field to the Assigned to field.

<FieldReference refname="System.AssignedTo">
<COPY from="field" field="TeamSystemPro.Samples.Tester" />
</FieldReference>

Result

When creating a new bug it's now required to select a Tester before it can be saving.

When choosing "Resolved" for the state "Assigned to" will be automatically filled with the contents from the "Tester" field.

The history correctly shows the change in the "Assigned To" field from the developer (here: "Neno Loje" to the tester (in this case: "Administrator")

Happy Customizing!

Using TFS for non-development projects

neno — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 15:00:00 GMT

Team Foundation Server is easily customizable and equipped with a general purpose workflow or state machine. So you might ask yourself: why not put a non-development or rather related process in TFS instead of using separate software.

Showcase #1: Lead Management

Since here at AIT TeamSystemPro Team we are TFS consultants we decided to not use a commercial CRM tool for managing our leads but rather customize a team project in TFS for this matter.

Here are a few impressions of the experience:

Work Item queries:

Work Item layout:

in Outlook (via TeamCompanion)

The pretty simple workflow behind it:

Showcase #2: Customer Support

Needless to say that the TFS support that we offer is tracked using work items as well:

Showcase #3: List of managed TFS instances

Every TFS instance that we manage has a corresponding record:

Your Feedback

Do you have an interesting idea or have you used your TFS to support a non-dev related process? Feel free to leave me a comment or use the contact link – thanks!

Using rich HTML descriptions instead of plain text

neno — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 11:34:00 GMT

Objective

Allow rich HTML formatting in description fields of the MSF Agile process template.

Note: The MSF CMMI process does support HTML formatting by default. In order to use it you have to enable the formatting toolbar (see Step 6 below).

Work Item Customization

Step 1: Add a new HTML description field

Since the System.Description field is defined of type string as opposed to type HTML we need to create a new field:

Step 2: Change the work item layout

Use your own HTML field instead of System.Description

Step 3: Refresh Work Item cache

Right-click "Work Items" in Team Explorer and select "Refresh".

Step 4: Enable the formatting toolbar

Right-click on the Visual Studio toolbar, find and click "Formatting":

A new toolbar will appear:

Result

Click into the description field and use the toolbar to format your input:

Optional Step 5: Copying the old descriptions to the new HTML field

It would be a pity to loose the existing descriptions so let's write a small utility using the Team Foundation Object model to copy the "old" descriptions to the new HTML field:

static void CopyOldDescriptions()
{
    // TODO: Change these values:
    string tfsName = "servertogo";
    string tfsProjectName = "WorkItemCustomization";
    string tfsHtmlDescriptionFieldName = "DescriptionHtml";
    string tfsWorkItemType = "Task";

    using (TeamFoundationServer tfs = TeamFoundationServerFactory.GetServer(tfsName))
    {
        WorkItemStore wit = (WorkItemStore)tfs.GetService(typeof(WorkItemStore));
        WorkItemCollection result = wit.Query(String.Format("SELECT [System.Id] FROM WorkItems WHERE [System.TeamProject] = '{0}' AND [System.WorkItemType] = '{1}'", tfsProjectName, tfsWorkItemType));
        List<WorkItem> affectedWorkItems = new List<WorkItem>();
        foreach (WorkItem wi in result)
        {
            if (wi.Description.Length > 0)
            {
                // Set new description
                string value = (string)wi[tfsHtmlDescriptionFieldName];
                if (String.IsNullOrEmpty(value))
                {
                    wi[tfsHtmlDescriptionFieldName] = wi.Description.Replace("\n", "<br>");
                }
                else
                {
                    wi[tfsHtmlDescriptionFieldName] += "<br><p>Old description:</p><p>" + wi.Description.Replace("\n", "<br>") + "</p>";
                }

                // Delete old description
                wi.Description = String.Empty;

                affectedWorkItems.Add(wi);
            }
        }

        if (affectedWorkItems.Count > 0)
        {
            wit.BatchSave(affectedWorkItems.ToArray());
            MessageBox.Show("Items updated: " + affectedWorkItems.Count);
        }
        else
        {
            MessageBox.Show("Nothing to do.");
        }
    }
}

Happy formatting. :-)

Workflows of MSF Agile and CMMI Process Templates for TFS

neno — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 00:24:36 GMT

When trying to decide which of the two MSF Process Templates - Agile vs. CMMI Process Improvement - for TFS is the right starting point for your company, it helps to compare the work item types and its workflows.

You can download the full guidance from:

MSF for Agile Software Development Process Guidance
MSF for CMMI Process Improvement Guidance
Also a good source: Microsoft's Process Templates and Tools website

MSF for Agile Software Development

featuring 5 work item types: Bug, Requirement, Quality of Service Requirement (QoS), Risk and Task.

Work Item Type: Bug

Work Item Type: Scenario

Work Item Type: Quality of Service Requirement (also known as "technical requirement")

Work Item Type: Risk

Work Item Type: Task

MSF for CMMI Process Improvement

featuring 7 work item types: Bug, Requirement, Change Request, Issue, Review, Risk, Task

Work Item Type: Bug

Work Item Type: Requirement

Work Item Type: Change Request

Work Item Type: Issue

Work Item Type: Review

Work Item Type: Risk

Work Item Type: Task

As a personal note:

Both templates are a great starting point. The agile template might be a bit more lightweight whereas the CMMI template might fit more the vocabulary and processes that you are used to.

However, both are really just a starting point. In customizing the process you get way more out of TFS than with just using the built-in process templates.

Q: How Do I link work items with SharePoint documents?

neno — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 20:46:38 GMT

A: Two possible ways:

Step 1: Get the URL of the document saved in a SharePoint document library

From the project portal:

Right-click the file and select Copy Shortcut. Done.

From the Team Explorer window in Visual Studio:

Right-click the file under the Documents folder and select Properties.

The quickest way is to double-click on "Url", then right-click the blue-marked URL on the right side and select Copy (or press Ctrl+C respectively).

Step 2: Add the link to the work item

Select Add on the work item's Links tab:

Select the a link type of "Hyperlink":

Paste the URL and enter a comment optionally:

Confirm with "OK".

Done.

Using TFS to develop custom SharePoint applications

neno — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 21:52:24 GMT

Using Team Foundation Server to Develop Custom SharePoint Products and Technologies Applications

Summary: Use Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Team Foundation Server to support SharePoint application development, and provide an integrated development environment and single source code repository for process activities, integrated progress reporting, and team roles. (12 printed pages)

Author: Microsoft Corporation, September 2008

Link: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc948982.aspx

Updated: revised versino of this blog post.

How Microsoft uses Team Foundation Server internally

neno — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 16:02:23 GMT

A good read:

Applying Value Up at Microsoft by Sam Guckenheimer
(also available as 60-minute-webcast)
(see also: attached image about Scenarios, Value Props, Experiences, Features)
Managing work for Team System by Jeff Beehler
Internal TFS Usage: Tracking Customer Value by Siddharth Bathia
Dependency Management by Siddharth Bathia
How Microsoft/DevDiv uses TFS - Chapter 1 (Our Process) by Gregg Boer
How Microsoft/DevDiv uses TFS - Chapter 2 (Feature Crews) by Gregg Boer
How Microsoft/DevDiv uses TFS - Chapter 3 (Implementing the Process) by Gregg Boer
How Microsoft/DevDiv uses TFS - Chapter 4 by Gregg Boer
How Microsoft/DevDiv uses TFS - Chapter 5 (Tracking Progress) by Gregg Boer
How Microsoft/DevDiv uses TFS - Chapter 6 (Tracking multiple projects) by Gregg Boer
How Microsoft/DevDiv uses TFS - Chapter 6 (Addendum) by Gregg Boer
How Microsoft/DevDiv uses TFS-Chapter 7 (Tracking Risk) by Gregg Boer
How Microsoft/DevDiv uses TFS-Chapter 8 (Tracking Quality Gates) by Gregg Boer
How Microsoft/Dev Div uses TFS - Chapter 9 (Transparency in Reporting) by Gregg Boer

About the technical side:

Monitoring using the TFSServer Manager Power Tool by Brian Harry
Update on Microsofts TFS adoption by Brian Harry
July '08 DevDiv TFS Dogfood Statistics by Brian Harry
TFS statistics queries by Brian Harry

Using images in description fields

neno — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 11:44:38 GMT

Requires:

The use of HTML description fields in stead of the default description field.
Team System Web Access (TSWA) to insert the pictures.

Steps:

Use a HTML fields for your descriptions instead of plan text fields
(might need to copy the old descriptions programmatically).
Add the image you want to use to the work item's attachments:
Save the Work Item.
Double-click your attachment. IE opens. Copy the URL to the attachment to the clipboard.
Open the Work Item in Team System Web Access and use the "Insert Images" bottom (from the toolbar within the HTML field):
Paste the attachment-URL from clipboard:
Save the Work Item.
Done. You can see your picture in the HTML description field.

TSWA:

Team Explorer:

Users can see all team projects after upgrading from TFS 2005 to 2008

neno — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 20:07:17 GMT

Make sure all team project members are added to the appropriate groups (Project Administrators, Contributors and Readers).
For every team project remove the "[Server]\Team Foundation Valid Users" group from the team project settings (Team Project Settings » Securty).
Done. Regular members now should only see team projects where they have permissions.

Enjoy!

Screen Gallery: Creating a Team Project in TFS 2008

neno — Sun, 11 May 2008 16:30:31 GMT

Screenshots from a successful team project creation.

What's the difference between Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) 3.0 and Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007?

neno — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 08:42:59 GMT

The answer lies in a very detailed Excel sheet:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepointtechnology/HA101978031033.aspx?pid=CL100636421033

(Thanks to Richard for pointing me to it)

Known Work Item History Limitations for Links & Attachments

neno — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 16:30:00 GMT

They are two major problems when looking into the history with regard to links.

1. No clue what has changed:
If you remove an attachment and add a completely different one the history will indicate that there was a change (revision gets in incremented by 1), but it won't tell you what has changed since TFS only tracks the numbers (e.g. number of external links).

2. Work Item links are only reflected in history on one side:

You have two work items: item 52 and item 53.

You decide to link item 53 with item 52.

Both items show the work item link under their "Links" tab.

Item 53 shows the new link in the history:

But the history of Item 52 shows no changes at all:

Updated Area Import/Export Tool for TFS 2008

neno — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 01:11:30 GMT

You can download a new version of the Area Import/Export Tool, compiled against Team Explorer 2008, here.

V-Modell XT Generator creates TFS Process Templates

neno — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 21:07:00 GMT

Microsoft Germany [1], The Center of Software Concepts at the Technical University of Munich [2] and Zühlke [3] released the V-Modell XT Generator [4] that creates process templates for working with the V-Modell, which is a process modell widely asked for by German customers working for the public sector. It is available via Codeplex.

Congratulations to Marcus Alt [5] from Microsoft and the whole team for realising this project which was quite a bit of work as I experienced first hand!

[1] http://www.microsoft.de/

[2] http://zfs.in.tum.de/

[3] http://www.zuehlke.com/index.php?id=2&L=2

[4] http://www.codeplex.com/VModellXTTFS

[5]http://blogs.msdn.com/marcalt/

Some impressions:

CollabXT V-Modell® XT Generator

Instantiated V-Modell® XT in TFS

V-Modell® XT Work Items in in TFS

V-Modell® XT Work Items in WebAccess

Changing TFS email notifications to link to Team System Web Access

neno — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 14:44:37 GMT

Thanks to this MSDN Forums post I was able to change the link included in every TFS notification e-mail to point to TSWA instead of the project portal.

Here’s the full story:

When using project alerts to get notified about work item changes you get an email containing a link to the project portal:

If you follow the link you might get a bit dissapointed when looking at this very basic work item details page:

Since Team System Web Access is now avaible from Microsoft free of charge we can change the link in the template for all notification messages to point to the new TSWA.

Changing the e-mail template

On the TFS app tier open the folder:
%ProgramFiles%\Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server\Web Services\Services\v1.0\Transforms
Create a backup of the file WorkItemChangedEvent.xsl, which we will be editing in the next step.
Replace the text:

<xsl:value-of select="DisplayUrl" />

with:

<xsl:value-of select="concat(substring-before(DisplayUrl,':8080/WorkItemTracking/WorkItem.aspx?artifactMoniker='),':8090/wi.aspx?id=',substring-after(DisplayUrl,'artifactMoniker='))" />

The bold printed 8090 is the port where you installed TSWA at.
Save the file and you are done.

If you now get a new notification e-mail and click on the link you’ll see the following much nicer work item details form provided by TSWA:

Note: Be aware that you either need to use Windows authentication with TSWA to make this work or you need to be already logged in and the session must be still alive.

I published a 2nd part: Changing TFS emails to link to Team System Web Access – Part 2

Tool for creating links to pages on Team System Web Access

neno — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 14:34:20 GMT

Would you like to send links to work items, team projects or source files on Team System Web Access?

For work items
… you can find the answer in the offical TSWA FAQ:

Q: What’s the URL to use if I want to send the link of a specific work item?

A: Work item links use the follwing format:

http://[TSWA:port]/wi.aspx?id=[WorkItemID]

For Team Projects
… it also pretty simple:

http://[TSWA:port]/index.aspx?pname=[ProjectName]

For Source Files
… it’s a little bit more “interesting” (thanks to Hakan from Microsoft for reveiling the details behind this secret).

It’s a bit tricky but here it goes:

http://[TSWA:port]/UI/Pages/Scc/ViewSource.aspx?scc-item=[ItemData]

ItemData is the HtmlEncoded output of the query string something like “id=10&cs=-1”

id: the ID of the item in source control (you need to know this instead of the file path)

cs: changeset number (-1: latest)

In your example, the file id is 151611. So,

HtmlEncode(“id=151611&cs=-1”) -> “id%3D151611%26cs%3D-1”

https://[TSWA:port]/UI/Pages/Scc/ViewSource.aspx?scc-item=id%3D151611%26cs%3D-1

[We’re planning to provide more friendly URLs in a future version, similar to wi.aspx approach]

To make it fast and more convenient to create links to TSWA I created a small tool to help you with it:

It should be mentioned that this tool has a lot of room for improvement. :-)

You can download the source from an updated version here.