While the Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS)/Team Foundation Server (TFS) 2015 Feature Index has been out for a little while now, I’m not sure how many people actually know about it. If you’re somewhat familiar with VSTS/TFS then you are aware that you can use the VSTS/TFS platform to manage your source code, track work items and even run automated builds and deployments. But are you aware of everything else that can be accomplished with VSTS/TFS? You might be surprised!
I am not going to detail everything the index covers because there is simply too much. However, here’s a high-level list of the categories within the index:
- Access and supported clients
- Agile tools to plan and track work
- Backlogs
- Bugs, tasks and issue tracking
- Customize (TFS)
- Customize (VSTS)
- Kanban
- Scale
- Scrum
- Workflow
- Alerts and notifications
- Code
- Git
- TFVC
- Package management (VSTS)
- Continuous Delivery
- Build
- Release (VSTS – Preview)
- Test
- Dashboards and Reports
- Charts and dashboards
- Power BI dashboards and reports (VSTS)
- SQL Server Reports (TFS)
- Widgets
- Extensibility
- Marketplace (VSTS)
- Rest APIs
- Service hooks
- Global
- Monitor
- Application Insights (Preview)
- HockeyApp
- Navigation
- Web portal
- Security
- Search, queries and filters
- Setup and installation
- Teams, team projects and processes
- Process templates (TFS)
- Team projects
- Teams
- Traceability
This index is great for learning about the features available within VSTS/TFS. Each of the above high-level categories is broken out into the features that comprise the category along with a short description. Links are included if you want to dive deeper into the details of each feature.
This index is also a great resource to have when comparing VSTS/TFS features to other platforms such as TeamCity. For example, here is a screen shot of the Build section within the VSTS/TFS Feature Index:
And here is a screenshot from the Build Infrastructure section of the TeamCity Features page:
While it isn’t necessarily an “apples-to-apples” comparison, it does give you a great starting point for codifying the value of the VSTS/TFS suite of tools.
So, when you have a little time, take the opportunity to look around the VSTS/TFS Feature Index. There might be more there than you realized!
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