Dependency management can be tough.  One way you can help visualize dependencies is by using the new Predecessor & Successor link type in TFS 2010 Work Item Tracking.  The way this particular link type works is that it is of type “Dependency” topology.  Here’s some more information about the Dependency topology:

Link types of this topology are like Directed Network links in that they have directionality, but an additional constraint to prevent circular relationships.

Example XML:

   1: <LinkTypes>

   2:     <LinkType ReferenceName="MyLinks.LinkTypes.MyPred" ForwardName="My Successor" ReverseName="My Predecessor" Topology="Dependency" />

   3: </LinkTypes>

You can list the link types currently on your TFS server by using the following command at a Visual Studio command prompt:

witadmin listlinktypes /collection:http://YourTfsServerName:8080/tfs/YourTeamProjectCollectionName

The details about the dependency link type that we’re interested as listed from witadmin.exe is:

Reference Name: System.LinkTypes.Dependency
Names: Successor, Predecessor
Topology: Dependency
Is Active: True

Gregg Boer has some more great information about customizing link types in TFS 2010 available here:  http://blogs.msdn.com/greggboer/archive/2010/03/01/tfs-2010-customizing-work-item-link-types.aspx

Adding a Dependencies Tab on the Work Item Form Layout

If you would like to add a tab in the layout for the work item type definition, you can add the following XML segment to the WITD Layout Section:

   1: <Tab Label="Dependencies">

   2:   <Control Type="LinksControl" Label="Dependencies Information for this Bug:" LabelPosition="Top" Name="Dependencies">

   3:     <LinksControlOptions>

   4:       <LinkColumns>

   5:         <LinkColumn RefName="System.Id" />

   6:         <LinkColumn RefName="System.WorkItemType" />

   7:         <LinkColumn RefName="System.Title" />

   8:         <LinkColumn RefName="System.AssignedTo" />

   9:         <LinkColumn RefName="System.State" />

  10:         <LinkColumn RefName="Microsoft.VSTS.Scheduling.OriginalEstimate" />

  11:         <LinkColumn RefName="Microsoft.VSTS.Scheduling.RemainingWork" />

  12:         <LinkColumn RefName="Microsoft.VSTS.Scheduling.CompletedWork" />

  13:         <LinkColumn RefName="Microsoft.VSTS.Scheduling.StartDate" />

  14:         <LinkColumn RefName="Microsoft.VSTS.Scheduling.FinishDate" />

  15:         <LinkColumn LinkAttribute="System.Links.Comment" />

  16:       </LinkColumns>

  17:       <WorkItemLinkFilters FilterType="include">

  18:         <Filter LinkType="System.LinkTypes.Dependency" />

  19:       </WorkItemLinkFilters>

  20:       <ExternalLinkFilters FilterType="excludeAll" />

  21:       <WorkItemTypeFilters FilterType="includeAll" />

  22:     </LinksControlOptions>

  23:   </Control>

  24: </Tab>

It will then show up on your work items something like this:

New Links Control Options

The LinksControl work item control has always existed but now that we have link types in TFS 2010, you can specify multiple links controls in the layout but have them specify certain filters.  Notice the User Story/Requirement, Test Case, and Bug in the MSF Agile and MSF CMMI process templates all take advantage of specifying multiple links controls.

There is more very early information about the new options of this control here:  http://blogs.msdn.com/teams_wit_tools/archive/2007/08/20/rosario-filtering-link-types-on-a-work-item-form.aspx

Dependencies Integration with Microsoft Office Project

One of the benefits of using the built-in Predecessor/Successor link type is that if you are pulling your work items into Microsoft Office Project, you end up seeing those dependencies in the project plan.  You can even change the dependencies in Project and publish your changes back to the TFS where they’ll show up on the new Dependencies tab you just created.  They are essentially round-tripped between Project and TFS 2010.

More Resources

• Customizing Work Item Types in TFS 2010
• Filtering Links Types on a Work Item
• Customizing Work Item Link Types in TFS 2010

Take care,

Ed Blankenship

I’ve had a few questions about the missing Alerts Editor node in Team Explorer after installing the TFS 2010 RC Power Tools so I thought I’d share with everyone.  First, Alerts Editor has been renamed to Alerts Explorer in the TFS 2010 Power Tools release.  Next, you’ll notice that in the TFS 2008 Power Tools, that a node existed underneath each Team Project shown below.

You’ll see that in the TFS 2010 Power Tools, it’s no longer available as a node under each team project but rather available from the context menu of the Team Project Collection node and named “Alerts Explorer.”

What is the Alerts Explorer?

There is a rich eventing & alerting system in TFS that allows end users to self-subscribe to alerts that meet different criteria.  These alerts can either be e-mail alerts or SOAP-based alerts to a web service URL.  (SOAP subscriptions can only be created by Team Foundation Server Administrators.)  By opening up the Alerts Explorer, you can see any of the subscriptions that you currently have created on the server.

Also, you can create new alerts based on some out of the box templates like “Work Items Assigned to Me” or “Failed Builds.”  This is a good starting off point for creating alerts and allows you to further customize the filter criteria to your specifications.

Tip:  As shown in the screenshot above, if you don’t want to receive an e-mail alert whenever you actually change something, be sure to include the “Authorized As <> Your Name” clause.

You also get some handy context menus around the Team Explorer UI to help you to easily create subscriptions.  For example, if there is a particular work item (like a bug) that you want to get e-mail alerts anytime someone changes it, just choose “Alert on Change..” from the context menu on that work item.  You’ll find some other context menu items for Alerts in other places so have fun finding them!

Ed Blankenship

One of the most exciting parts of last week’s Microsoft MVP Global Summit was the surprise announcement that I was chosen as the MVP of the Year for Visual Studio Team System (Visual Studio ALM now) and TFS.  I can’t tell you how humbled I was to find out!  One of the special parts of this particular award is that each of the Visual Studio ALM MVPs nominated our peers for the award.  We have an exceptionally great group and to have been chosen from this great group is the most humbling part.  Thanks to each and every one of you for this honor!

Martin Woodward was selected as the MVP of the Year last year so I hear we’re going to start the tradition of passing on the “MVP of the Year” belt buckle :)  That should be fun to hold on to for 2010.

(Thanks to Sunder Raman for taking the picture!)

One of the exciting “features” of the award was an invitation to a dinner with Soma Somasegar, Brian Harry, Scott Hanselman, Brad Abrams, Chuck, Sara Ford, and the other top-notch MVPs selected from the other Developer Division MVP groups.  It was truly a great dinner and we had a lot of great conversation.  Ewald Hofman (another VSTS MVP) also joined us for the awesome amount of contributions to the VSTS MSDN Forums.

Thanks again to everyone for the awesome honor!

Very respectfully,

Ed Blankenship

Just got some news about Team Lab Management in TFS 2010 hot off the press:

Q: How will support work for customers who are already using Lab Management with the Go-Live License in Beta 2 or RC?

A: We will continue to support customers that have already gone live with Lab Management 2010 pre-release go-live licenses.

 

Q: What are the pricing details for Lab Management 2010?

A: Suggested FPP retail price for Visual Studio Lab Management 2010 is US$1599. Of course, the majority of customers are likely to qualify for a lower price point based on volume licensing discounts. Lab Management 2010 will be priced per physical processor (each processor of each lab server must be licensed for Visual Studio Lab Management 2010). Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate or Visual Studio Test Professional 2010 is required to manage lab environments.

 

Q: Have we changed our shipping plans for the general availability of Lab Management 2010?

A: Quality has always been and remains a top priority for Visual Studio. Being definitive about RTM dates is always very difficult and doubly so for brand new v1 products. For this reason, until we are very close, we generally only forecast release timeframes rather than specific dates. While it’s true, early on, we had hoped to release the new Lab Management product at the same time as the rest of Visual Studio 2010. It became clear through the Beta cycle that it was taking a bit longer to get sufficient, detailed feedback. Excitement has been very high but there’s also a huge amount of new value in the 2010 wave; we made the decision that it was better for Lab Management to ship a little later in the 2010 wave if that means we can incorporate additional feedback to ensure it’s the terrific product everyone wants it to be. 

 

Remember, customers can deploy it with a supported pre-release go-live license!  If customers have any feedback during the pre-release process, please send that to the product group using Microsoft Connect.

 

About Visual Studio Lab Management 2010

Visual Studio Lab Management 2010 is a new offering in the Visual Studio 2010 release wave. Lab Management 2010 enables teams to configure and manage a virtual lab environment. Lab Management works with System Center Virtual Machine Manager for enabling teams to create environment templates, provision ring-fenced environments, and checkpoint those environments. Using Lab Management, you can accelerate setup, tear down and restoration of complex virtual environments to a known state for test execution and build automation. It extends build automation by automating virtual machine provisioning, build deployment and build verification in an integrated manner. It also enables testers to file rich bugs with links to environment checkpoints that developers can use to recreate complex environments, effectively reducing wasted time and resources in your development and test life cycle. Those checkpoints can be attached to bugs filed using the Microsoft Test Manager enabling the person fixing the bug to open the environment right to the appropriate point in the application flow.

 

Related Links

· Visual Studio Lab Management Team Blog

· Visual Studio Team Test Blog

· Microsoft Virtualization VHD Test Drive Program

Ed Blankenship

I’m pretty excited because this week is one of my absolutely favorite weeks of the year.  I’m heading to the Microsoft campus in Redmond to attend the Microsoft MVP Summit where MVPs around the world travel in to have deep discussions about Microsoft products. 

I especially enjoy having been a Visual Studio Team System/ALM MVP the last few years because the other Team System MVPs are really one of the best groups of colleagues out there!  We have deeply heated discussions about all sorts of topics but it’s always constructive and deeply engaging. 

We also happen to be associated with a super product group that really values the feedback we give and it’s truly reflective in the great work that they craft together in the final product.  It’s our time to be the voice of the customer and the product team genuinely appreciates the insight.

Is there something about Visual Studio ALM (Team System) or TFS that you’d like me to make sure I bring up?

Even though I won’t be able to report to you what we end up talking about (since we are all under NDA for this event,) I can only tell you that if this year’s time spent is anywhere near the past several years then our talks about Visual Studio ALM features and Team Foundation server is going to be awesome!

Take care,

Ed Blankenship

I’ve been hearing this question quite a bit…  “Can I collect an IntelliTrace log in Production?”  This would be a really good idea especially now that there is a standalone command-line utility, IntelliTrace.exe, that you can run to collect IntelliTrace log files.  Unfortunately, it looks like the Visual Studio 2010 Licensing White Paper answers that question for us on page 28:

The IntelliTrace DDA and/or IntelliTrace.exe cannot be used:

• On a device or server in a production environment.
• For purposes of system or application monitoring.
• In non-interactive scenarios other than as part of an automated test or debugging-data collection session.

Bummer! :(  Honestly, I imagine that has to do with something around how IntelliTrace works and Microsoft doesn’t feel comfortable the impact it may have on running Production environments.  Just my conjecture though…

You’ll notice that you can use IntelliTrace in other instances though; most notably on development & test environments!

The IntelliTrace diagnostic data adapter (DDA) and/or IntelliTrace.exe can be used for test and debugging purposes:

• As part of an interactive test or debugging session.
• As part of an automated test or debugging-data collection session that is authored by a licensed user and triggered by the same or another licensed user.

You can even share IntelliTrace files between two companies as long as both companies are properly licensed!

IntelliTrace files may be shared among two or more companies as long as all users capturing and debugging IntelliTrace files are licensed with either Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate or Visual Studio Test Professional 2010, depending on the activities they are performing. For example, a company can share IntelliTrace files with an external development consultant. Similarly. a company can use an external company for testing purposes and debug IntelliTrace files provided by that vendor.

Here were the common scenarios mentioned in the licensing white paper.  See if you happen to fit into one of them:

Example 1: Finding a defect in a test environment Company A is building a Web application. All the developers are licensed for Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate with MSDN, and the testers are licensed with Visual Studio Test Professional 2010 with MSDN. During a test run a defect is discovered in the test environment that is difficult to reproduce in a development environment. The test machines have previously been configured with the Visual Studio Test Agent 2010, which includes the IntelliTrace DDA. The tester uses the Microsoft Test Manager to execute the test case with the IntelliTrace diagnostic data adapter (DDA) enabled. When the defect is encountered, the tester files a new bug, with the IntelliTrace files from each of the test machines is automatically attached to the bug. When a developer opens the bug using Visual Studio Ultimate, he or she can open the IntelliTrace files and step through the execution.

Example 2: Working with an external consultant In Example 1, Company A uses an external consultant to help with development. If the external consultant is licensed for Visual Studio Ultimate, he or she can open and debug the IntelliTrace files provided by Company A.

Example 3: Working with an external test vendor In Example 1, Company A uses Company B as an outsourced test vendor. The two companies can work together using IntelliTrace as long as all developers at Company A and all testers at company B are licensed appropriately.

I’m not sure what the minimal technical footprint is to get IntelliTrace.exe to collect an iTrace file just yet but my answer right now will be to have one of these installed:

• Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate
• Visual Studio 2010 Test Professional
• Visual Studio 2010 Test Agents (additional software) <--- probably the smallest impact to a system

If I find out some more information about this scenario, then I’ll be putting together a future blog post!

Take care,

Ed Blankenship

The Release Candidate for Visual Studio 2010 and Team Foundation Server 2010 was made available a few days to MSDN Subscribers.  It’s now going to be made available to the rest of the world today:  http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=151797

The first impression I have is that Visual Studio has been super super snappy and lot more purple :)  You can really take advantage of all of the performance work that has been performed by the product groups.  What’s funny is that I have was too slow several times to grab the screenshot below! :)

I have also done several TFS 2010 Beta 2 to RC upgrades so far and all of them have gone super well including a super complex setup that we have at Notion Solutions.  If you are planning on upgrading from Beta 2 to RC, be sure to read the Upgrade Guide before you get started.

As with the Beta 2, the RC of TFS, Visual Studio, and .NET Framework 4 can be used in production with a “Go-Live” license.  Be sure to check out Jeff Beehler’s blog post that has more information about the “Go-Live” license including how to register for complimentary support in case you need it.

After you get everything installed and used it for a few days, please be sure to give feedback about whether you think the release is ready to go by taking the RC survey.  There is only a limited time to give any feedback and the bar is high for things that will change before RTM so don’t delay!

Ed Blankenship

Updated – 8/19/2011 – New Rollback Features Available in the UI with TFS 2010 Power Tools (See Below for More Details)

One of the new features for TFS 2010 Version Control is the ability to rollback or undo a changeset or check-in inside the product and see it as a new pending change type (and new change type in the history) inside Team Explorer. This feature has been available in TFS 2008 but you had to use the TFS Power Tools. The only gotcha for the TFS 2010 implementation is that you have to use the command-line application tf.exe to actually perform the rollback operation. More information about the tool is available here in the MSDN Library: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd380776(VS.100).aspx

The syntax is:

tf rollback /changeset:changesetfrom~changesetto [itemspec] [/recursive]
[/lock:none|checkin|checkout] [/version:versionspec]
[/keepmergehistory] [/noprompt] [/login:username,[password]]

tf rollback /toversion:versionspec itemspec [/recursive]
[/lock:none|checkin|checkout] [/version:versionspec]
[/keepmergehistory] [/noprompt] [/login:username,[password]]

Versionspec:
Date/Time D"any .Net Framework-supported format"
or any of the date formats of the local machine
Changeset number Cnnnnnn
Label Llabelname
Latest version T
Workspace Wworkspacename;workspaceowner

Rollback Available in the UI Now

If you have the August 2011 or later version of the TFS 2010 Power Tools installed, you now have the ability to fire off a rollback straight from Team Explorer without having to use the command-line approach.  The main way would be to fire it off from the Source Control Explorer window.

However, you can start the rollback process from the Changeset History window as well.

Ed Blankenship

As promised, I have published the slides from my PowerPoint Deck for my talk on Saturday at the Columbia Code Camp.

Thanks to everyone I bugged during the week before to grab a hold of these slides! Contact me (using the contact form on the website) if you'd like to get a copy of the PowerPoint deck.

Ed Blankenship

Tomorrow, I’ll be presenting in this month’s geekSpeak about migrating from Visual SourceSafe to Team Foundation Server 2010.  I’m sure we’ll get through the VSS content pretty quickly so with the time left we’ll talk about new branching & merging features, branch visualization, and gated check-in.

In this geekSpeak, Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) Ed Blankenship discusses migrating source code from Visual SourceSafe, including the history. There has not been a better time to migrate to the newest Microsoft source control offering, Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Team Foundation Server, because Microsoft Visual SourceSafe support is ending soon and Team Foundation Server will be part of Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) subscriptions in 2010. Ed discusses specific version-control features to help you become more productive like branching and merging visualization, annotate, shelving, and gated check-in. This geekSpeak is hosted by Glen Gordon and Brian Hitney.

Registration for the event available here:  http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/WebCastEventDetails.aspx?culture=en-US&EventID=1032438525

BTW – The end-of-life support date for Visual SourceSafe is mid-year 2011.  Don’t get stuck on an unsupported product :) especially one that’s holding your source code!

Update:  The recording of this presentation is now available on Channel 9 here:  http://channel9.msdn.com/shows/geekSpeak/geekSpeak-Recording-Migrating-to-Team-Foundation-Server-from-Visual-SourceSafe/ .  Sorry about the dropped call in the middle of the presentation.  Also, here’s some links that I mentioned during the talk:

• Whitepaper – “From VSS to TFS”:  http://sstjean.blogspot.com/2006/10/document-from-vss-to-tfs-introduction.html
• Whitepaper – Exposing TFS to the Internet:  http://blogs.msdn.com/ablock/archive/2009/08/24/exposing-tfs-2010-beta-2-to-the-internet.aspx
• Visual Studio 2010 and .NET 4.0 Training Kit (Labs, Videos, Slide Decks, etc.): http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=752CB725-969B-4732-A383-ED5740F02E93&displaylang=en

Ed Blankenship