I’m up really early this morning.  I’m about to head to the airport to spend my Independence Day weekend in the Carolinas for some much needed beach vacation and visit with friends.  Thankfully, I didn’t miss Martin Woodward letting me know that the latest Radio TFS episode was made available just a few moments ago that includes my interview about our use of TFS and Visual Studio Team System at Infragistics.  It’s a longer episode than normal so it’s perfect if you’re going to be spending some time at the beach like me and listen to a fun talk.  We both really enjoyed chatting for this episode so we hope you enjoy it as well!

Using TFS with Ed Blankenship

In this episode we sit down and chat with Ed Blankenship about the use of Team Foundation Server at Infragistics. Ed has had some interesting challenges and experiences in running their TFS instance.  Additionally they have done some fairly advanced integration work which we discuss in detail.  This is a double-length show, so hopefully plenty of stuff to enjoy if you are sunning yourself on a beach somewhere.

Ed is the Release Engineering Manager at Infragistics, makers of the world's leading presentation layer tools and components.  He is also a Microsoft MVP in Visual Studio Team System.

     Play Now: Using TFS with Ed Blankenship

As the Release Engineering Manager, he leads the Release Engineering Department which is responsible for automated builds, creating product installers, packaging source code for customers, source configuration management/version control, metrics, release management, work item tracking, licensing enforcement, and development of internal productivity tools.  The department also is responsible for TFS Operations & Maintenance.

Ed has been a technical editor for the Wrox Silverlight 1.0, Silverlight 2 Developer's Guide, and Silverlight 2 Bible books, author of numerous articles, and has spoken at various user groups, events, and conferences.

Links from the show:

• Ed's Blog
• Microsoft Process Template
• Martin's Blog Post on Check-in Policies
• How to turn on Activity Logging with TFS 2005

As usual send any feedback to radiotfs@gmail.com.

Feel free to let me know if you have any questions based on the Radio TFS chat.  I’m more than happy to get them answered for you!

Take care,

Ed B.

Come join!  Here’s the website and the details.

Website:  http://www.tsug-ve.com/

JUNE EMEA Meeting
Meeting Date: Thursday, June 18th, 2009
Time: 10:00AM PDT/SLT (18:00 UTC)
Location:  Microsoft Island in Second Life

Real World TFS:  Tips for a Successful Team System Implementation

OK, you’ve decided that Visual Studio Team System & Team Foundation Server is going to bring your organization added value (because it will :)) but what do you do now?  This session will cover the 2.5 year successful implementation of VSTS and the experience of that journey at Infragistics, the world’s leading maker of software development tools.  The session intends to cover over each phase of the implementation over all of the affected areas for a smooth adoption:  Version Control, Builds, Work Item Tracking, global deployment, moving multiple teams, training, automated testing, migration from legacy systems, and integration with other systems and TFS.  The goal will be to go through at a high-level what it takes to make you successful by learning from the challenges and obstacles overcome.  We’ll also look to the future with VSTS 2010 and see how strategic planning will help make a successful adoption of the new features in the upcoming 2010 release.  The session is led by a Team System MVP & Champ who has been in the trenches during the whole implementation.

Prerequisites:  A healthy attitude from learning from other’s challenges and a strong desire to make real change at your organization!

Take care,

Ed B.

I’ll have to admit, the Easy Assist feature is not very discoverable if you have a Live Meeting account but it’s really really really useful!  So imagine you have a coworker or a mother who needs help but they’re not where you’re at.  There are a lot of different ways for people to do remote assistance support but if you have a Live Meeting account there’s another way that I’ve been using:  Easy Assist.  It’s the same app that lots of support professionals at Microsoft Product Support & Services use to help customers remotely.

BTW:  If you’re an MVP, you have received a complimentary Live Meeting account as part of your benefits!

Downloads for End-users who need support

• Download the Microsoft Easy Assist support console for joining an Easy Assist session
• Download the Microsoft Easy Assist Safe Mode Client for troubleshooting within Windows Safe Mode

Downloads for Support Agent

• Download the Easy Assist Launchpad for setting up Easy Assist sessions
• Download the Microsoft Easy Assist support console for joining an Easy Assist session

Easy Assist Launchpad

So the first thing you should do to help create support sessions quickly as a “support agent” is get the Easy Assist Launchpad installed so it sits in your tray and waits for you.  When you launch it for the first time, it’ll ask you to put in your Live Meeting credentials.  These are the same that you would use when you setup & configure the Live Meeting client. 

After you have finished that, the Launchpad will sit in your system tray and has a few options available for you:

I’ve went ahead and chosen “Create Session” and I’m just going to put in something to let my Mom (and I) know this is for her session.

After, creating the session you’ll have the option to join the session yourself and also send the invite by e-mail (using your default e-mail application) to the person you’re trying to support.  Look at the URL… you’ll notice it’s very similar to a Live Meeting invite but instead it has the “joinEA?” inside of it.  This is important because this is what makes the end user experience better for the support agent and the person being supported because it will fire off the Easy Assist client instead of the full Live Meeting client.

Support Agent Features

Once you’ve fired off the Easy Assist support agent client, you’ll be able to see the other support agents that are attending as well as the person(s) you are trying to support.  You can request that they reboot, share their screen, share your screen, request to control their session, send files, and more.  Support agent screens:

All the end user sees is a small window that’s out of view.  After the session, it even asks the end user if they would like to uninstall the Easy Assist client since it’s not needed anymore!  How nice?!  It even works if the customer has booted in safe mode.  Very handy at times.

You can see how it’s super easy to escalate a support call from a family member, an IM/e-mail from a co-worker, or even setting up a session for you to get help from a support agent who doesn’t have remote assistance provided by their employer.  Hope this is helpful to you!

Ed B.

This has been out for a little while but wanted to make sure that you knew about it as well!

Our Director of Product Development here at Infragistics, Joe Croney, has been working on a personal side project of creating an iPhone app that will connect to Team Foundation Server.  He’s got a BETA posted in the Apple iTunes store now.  At the moment it only supports checking on Builds but I know he’s starting a backlog.

More screenshots and an FAQ are available at the website:  http://www.tfstogo.com/

Joe is looking for some feedback and any bugs so if you find some feel free to report them at support@tfstogo.com.  Congrats Joe!

FYI:  We’ve found that if you connect over VPN in the iPhone that sometimes a local DNS name isn’t resolved correctly.  You can correct this by putting in the hard-coded IP address of the TFS server instead.

Have fun and enjoy!

Ed B.

It’s been pretty quiet around this blog for quite some time now.  Just been busy traveling to TechEd North America and back to our office in New Jersey.  Lots going on!  However, no one ever has enough time to get everything done :)

I’m going to be a little more demanding on myself to get through my blog topic backlog that I’ve been keeping for a while.  I think I’m up to 19 at the moment so I need to get it flushed out!  I keep a list alongside my To-Do list in OneNote about different topics that I come across that I blog about.  Usually they are from problems that I see day to day that other people probably will want to solve at some point (I always archive the screenshots so I can use them in my blog posts later.)  Other topics that end up on the list are in response to something I’ve done while traveling.  For example, Martin Woodward and I had the chance to record a Radio TFS episode (not yet aired) where we talked about our implementation of Team Foundation Server and Visual Studio Team System at Infragistics.  I think it was a great session and definitely looking forward to it getting out in the wild.  There were a few topics that we talked of stumbles we’ve encountered over the last two years and how we ended up solving them.  The goal for us was to get those out in the public since others may be experiencing the same hurdles and looking for resources on how to solve them.  It’s more along the lines of “hey, here’s our story so you can learn from our mistakes.”  I hope you find them useful.  On this blog, I’ll start talking about some of those points that we brought up in more detail since the radio show has to be reduced to a reasonable amount of time :)  Some of the stuff we talked about was just down-right cool!  More details to come…

So, dear reader, I am pledging to you to get through my current blog topic backlog by the end of June.  Let me know if you would like me to write about anything in particular!

Take care,

Ed B.

P.S.  I cross-post between my Infragistics Blog and my personal blog.  Some posts don’t end up on my Infragistics Blog site so be sure to check http://www.edsquared.com/ from time to time where my long-time colleague Ed Kisinger and I blog.  If you’d like to subscribe to that feed, the RSS address is:  RSS for Posts

I had a really good time last night speaking to the Dallas VSTS User Group about the Microsoft Process Template.  If you want more information, I wrote a blog post shortly after the public release of the MPT.  I was really sick last month when I was supposed to speak so I’m really glad I got the opportunity to make it up.

One of the things I really enjoy about the group was the open session time after the scheduled talk to discuss problems people were facing with Team System and the group attempts to come up with possible solutions.  That’s really a great use of time for a specialized user group like this one.

As a fun extra, thankfully the Demo Gods were okay with me and saved this Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) until after I was finished using the VPC during my talk :)  Everyone insisted that I take a screenshot and share with the rest of the world so enjoy!

Ed B.

P.S. As a side note, the experience whenever your evaluation license runs out in Windows Server 2008 has definitely improved.  It no longer gives you a BSOD.  I was using TFS 2008 SP1 installed in a Windows Server 2003 VPC for my demos.

In December, I had the privilege to be the “MVP in Residence” with the Team System product group.  Chuck blogged about the experience at the beginning and end of the week.  I felt really good about the accomplishments at the end of the week.  The main project I worked on was packaging up the Microsoft Process Template (MPT) so that it could used by the public community.  I’m happy to announce that it is live on CodePlex now so feel free to download and use it!

Description

The Microsoft Process Template (MPT) is a Microsoft internal, end-to-end project management solution that maps to the Microsoft product development cycle and works with Visual Studio Team System 2008 (VSTS). The MPT offers an out-of-the-box solution and includes all the work item types (forms), queries, documentation, engineering best practices, and reports required for Microsoft development teams to get up and running on Visual Studio Team System. The Engineering Excellence* and Visual Studio Development teams worked together closely over the last year to create this template by compiling the lessons learned from other teams that have implemented similar templates, incorporating engineering best practices, widely socializing the concepts, and finally piloting this template with several product groups.
*The engineering excellence team is a Microsoft business unit that provides Microsoft business group employees with high-quality technical education, best practices and guidance.

Be sure to check out the Introduction and the Getting Started guides to dive in and get the background information for the process template.  One of the main things that people will notice is that the MPT simulates work item hierarchy through the the use of some daemon services.  There are several ways to simulate hierarchy in TFS 2008 so if you’re looking for a solution the MPT has the services source code and reports created for them.

Here is a sample report that uses the hierarchy to rollup the progress by Feature:

There are a few known issues with the process template which are listed in the Getting Started guide.  I’ll be sure to keep the guide updated if I hear of any other known issues.

Other MPT Resources

Gregg Boer, Principal Program Manager on the TFS product group, wrote an excellent series of blog posts of how Microsoft uses the MPT internally along with an overview of the process around tracking progress throughout the release.

· How Microsoft/DevDiv uses TFS - Chapter 1 (Our Process)

· How Microsoft/DevDiv uses TFS - Chapter 2 (Feature Crews)

· How Microsoft/DevDiv uses TFS - Chapter 3 (Implementing the Process)

· How Microsoft/DevDiv uses TFS - Chapter 3 (Addendum)

· How Microsoft/DevDiv uses TFS - Chapter 4

· How Microsoft/DevDiv uses TFS - Chapter 5 (Tracking Progress)

· How Microsoft/DevDiv uses TFS - Chapter 6 (Tracking multiple projects)

· How Microsoft/DevDiv uses TFS - Chapter 6 (Addendum)

· How Microsoft/DevDiv uses TFS-Chapter 7 (Tracking Risk)

· How Microsoft/DevDiv uses TFS-Chapter 8 (Tracking Quality Gates)

· How Microsoft/Dev Div uses TFS - Chapter 9 (Transparency in Reporting)

Jeff Beehler and Brian Keller also put together a video of how Jeff uses the MPT & TFS to monitor progress of the release cycle. Take a look on Channel 9: http://channel9.msdn.com/posts/briankel/Better-Project-Management-with-Team-Foundation-Server/

I really want to thank you to everyone that helped getting it packaged up for the public!  Also, thanks to Chuck for organizing the week, working logistics, and of course giving me a place to stay!

Ed B.

I just found out about this group from an MSDN Flash. Check them out; there is a meeting tonight.

Azure User Group Website

The website is home for many Azure User Groups from around the world.

Ed K.

Download here

Overview

The Azure Services Training Kit includes a comprehensive set of technical content including hands-on labs, presentations, and demos that are designed to help you learn how to use the Azure Services Platform. The February release includes the following updates:

• 19 demo scripts that walkthrough several of the services
• 10 presentations covering the entire Azure Services Platform
• 3 additional hands-on labs for Live Services

This technical content covers services including: Windows Azure, .NET Services, SQL Services, and Live Services.

Ed K.

Grant Holliday, former Team System MVP, is now working on the VSTS product group on various things but most importantly helping keep the internal Microsoft TFS servers in tip-top shape.  They have the largest known TFS instances in the world so you could imagine it’s got to be tough keeping it up and running well.  Brian Harry posts their usage metrics regularly if you’d like to get an idea of how HUGE it is.

Keeping the performance manageable requires lots of monitoring and looking over the data that gets stored in the activity logging.  Grant has packaged up some of the reports they use internally and provided them to the world.  The download package is available on his blog post.

Personally, I’m really glad that the product group is investing in dogfooding the early builds of the version of TFS that they are working on.  By putting the product under real use and under the load that only Microsoft can generate, we end up with a better product by the time it RTMs.

Thanks again for making this available to the world!

Ed B.