06 Apr 2007

Updated Team Foundation Server Roadmap for "Orcas"

Orcas, TFS, Visual Studio
Brian Harry has just published a new post detailing the future "Orcas" release of Team Foundation Server. The post is fairly detailed and he attempts to point out what features are new as well as what will be in the Beta 1 release vs. the Beta 2 release.The features marked as new include:TFS Best Practices Analyzer - A tool that can be run against your TFS server that will help diagnose configuration errors and tuning possibilities.VSTS Web Access - There's been much written about this already but the new Web Access product from devBiz will be released as a Power…
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27 Mar 2007

Microsoft Acquires TeamPlain!

Team System, TFS
The buzz of the day in the land of TFS has to be the story of Microsoft acquiring TeamPlain!  Brian Harry has posted the details but the two main points that stick out is that: TeamPlain will become Microsoft Visual Studio Team System Web Access (sometime around the "Orcas" release). It is available immediately as a free download for anyone who owns Team Foundation Server.The focus of TeamPlain is on TFS work items, however, there is also some built-in version control capabilities, SharePoint integration, Reporting Services integration, and some build support (in a future release). If you currently have users using the…
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26 Mar 2007

VSTS Guidance Updated

Team System, TFS
The Patternes and Practices Visual Studio Team System Guidance site has been updated to include a few new items, including:Explained: Branching in Team Foundation ServerVideo: How To - Setup Your Source Tree in Team Foundation ServerVideo: How To - Structure Your ASP.NET Projects for TFS Here's a list of what else is also available at this site:Explained - Structuring Your Solutions and Projects in Source Control with Team Foundation Server How To: Perform a Baseless Merge in Team Foundation Server How To: Step Through Creating a Custom Check-in Policy for Team Foundation Server 2005 How To: Step Through Creating Your…
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07 Mar 2007

VS 2005 SP 1 Update for Windows Vista Released

Team System, TFS, Visual Studio
If you've been developing on Windows Vista using Visual Studio 2005 then you've no doubt become all too familiar with the warning dialog that pops up every time you start Visual Studio (assuming you haven't disabled it). This dialog lets you know that your version of Visual Studio may not work as excepted while developing on Vista and that you should install the Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1 Update for Windows Vista.Since the release of Visual Studio 2005 Service Pack 1, this update was available only as a beta release. Microsoft has now released the non-beta version of this…
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03 Mar 2007

Outlook Add-In for Team Foundation Server

Team System, TFS
I came across a (free!) add-in a while back that provides integration of TFS Work Items with Microsoft Outlook 2003.  This add-in provides the following features: Create work items directly from e-mail messages. Submit and edit work items. Execute stored queries. Find work items by ID. Export stored query results. Send work item data and query results by e-mail. Does not require Team Explorer to be installed (although you still need to maintain the required end-user CALs). If you have business owners, testers, quality assurance users, etc. that would like to be able to create and/or manage work items within…
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26 Feb 2007

Running FitNesse Tests from your Team Build Script

TFS
For anyone using FitNesse you may have the need (or just plain desire) to run your FitNesse tests from within your Team Build scripts.  This is a need that we have on a project I'm currently working on so I investigated the various options for implementing the tests within our automated build process. In the end, I ended up creating a custom build task that allows you to run FitNesse tests as part of your build.  The build task currently supports FitNesse but will also support tsqlunit tests (another testing framework we use) in the near future. I've placed the…
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24 Feb 2007

Beta Exam 71-510: Study Links

Certification, TFS
Like several others out there, I am planning on taking the Beta 71-510 exam next week.  Being that this is the first time this test has existed, it is difficult to figure out what to study and where to find study materials (other than the obvious - experience with TFS itself).  I've put together a few links that I've been using while studying for the exam so I thought I'd post them here in case anyone else finds them useful. Preparation Guide for Exam 70-510 - this is Microsoft's guide detailing what items are covered on the test. Team Foundation Administrator's…
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03 Feb 2007

Beta Exam 71-510: TS: Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server

Certification, TFS
I just saw this post on Rob Caron's blog.  Registration for the 71-510 Beta Exam is now open.  The exam can be taken between February 20th and March 5th.  There are a limited number of slots available on a first-come, first-served basis so sign up quickly!  I signed up this evening without any problems. Use the promotion code TSVS510 when registering to cover the cost of the exam. There is a preparation guide available here.  The list of topics is quite length so I'll definitely be spending some time brushing up on a few areas. See Rob's post for more…
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03 Feb 2007

Displaying Team System reports in the Team Portal

TFS
One of the nicest features of the TFS SharePoint site (in my opinion) is the ability to display various reports on the portal's home page.  We currently display a build report as well as a defect report.  To do this, I've always used the default Page Viewer web part and manually set the URL to the desired report. However, today I noticed a post from Jeff Atwood describing a different approach.  He explains how to install the SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services web parts (which already exist on your TFS server - they just need to be setup). There are…
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03 Feb 2007

TFS Bug Item Synchronizer 1.1 for Mercury Quality Center – Part 2

TFS
A couple of months ago I posted about a utility I happed across that synchronizes Team Foundation Server bugs with Mercury's Quality Center/Test Director product.  At that time I hadn't yet had the opportunity to try the utility out.  This past week I finally planned some time into my iteration to setup the utility and try it out. Our development team currently uses Visual Studio Team System for development whereas our testers are currently using Mercury Quality Center to track defects.  On past projects I've actually went through the trouble of manually synchronizing defects in both systems (luckily we didn't…
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