Planet SCM

Interested in sharing your process template? Would you rather use one someone else created? Check out the Templex project on CodePlex, which will serve as a library of process templates for use with Team Foundation Server.

Set your templates free! Share and discover Team Foundation Server process templates and other goodies here.

This CodePlex projects serves as a repository for open source Team Foundation Server (TFS) process templates, work item type definitions and report definitions. TFS uses process templates to configure new team projects. Each process template includes the following:

• TFS Security groups and permissions
• Initial set of Areas and Iterations
• Work item type definitions
• Initial set of work items
• Work item querys
• MS Project Mappings
• Version control permissions and settings for check-out and check-in
• Project portal document library settings, including an initial set of documents
• SQL Reporting Services report definitions

Once a team project is created, the following configuration items can be imported, exported and modified:

• Work item type definitions
• Work item queries
• Report definitions

Templex - The TFS Process Template Library

via Microsoft ALM process templates site set up.

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The final release of Team Development with Visual Studio Team Foundation Server is now available for download from CodePlex! I'm really, really excited about this guide. Any team that is adopting Team Foundation Server (or is wisely considering to do so) should read this guide. Enjoy.

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For those who have experienced any problems getting eScrum (Now Available: Microsoft eScrum Version 1.0) installed and working due to ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit version conflicts:

Since you can't download previous versions of the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit, and eScrum is compiled with a specific version, you may need to update the web.config file to allow automatic usage of a newer version of the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit. eScrum has not been tested with newer versions, but may work well.

Add the following XML to the eScrum web.conifg file after the </configSections> close tag. Afterward, update the newVersion attribute to the version of the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit that you are using.

<runtime>

      <assemblyBinding xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1">

            <dependentAssembly>

                  <assemblyIdentity name="AjaxControlToolkit"

                        publicKeyToken="28f01b0e84b6d53e"

                        culture="neutral"/>

                  <bindingRedirect oldVersion="1.0.10301.0" newVersion="1.0.xxxxx.0"/>

            </dependentAssembly>

      </assemblyBinding>

</runtime>

Let me know if that helps/hinders.

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If you're looking for another Scrum template to try with Team Foundation Server, consider using eScrum, which is an implementation of Scrum that's used internally by some teams within Microsoft:

eScrum is a Web-based, end-to-end project management tool for Scrum built on the Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server platform. It provides multiple ways to interact with your Scrum project: eScrum Web-based UI, Team Explorer, and Excel or Project, via Team Foundation Office Integration. In addition, it provides a single place for all Scrum artifacts such as product backlog, sprint backlog, task management, retrospective, and reports with built-in context sensitive help.

Source: Download details: Microsoft eScrum Version 1.0

In addition, take a look at the VSTS Scrum Process Template on CodePlex, which is under the guidance of several Team System MVPs.

Update: A great summary post I suggest you read if you're interested in eScrum: A Quick eScrum Review.

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As noted by Paul Krill in InfoWorld (Microsoft linking project, ALM servers), the much anticipated connection between Team Foundation Server and Microsoft Project Server is now freely available for download from CodePlex, Microsoft's open source project hosting Website.

Available Monday, the company's Visual Studio Team Foundation Server - Project Server 2007 Connector (PS-TFS Connector) is free software that links the two products. Customers get a holistic view and up-to-date information to better manage software development projects across an organization, Microsoft said.

Source: Microsoft linking project, ALM servers | InfoWorld | News | 2007-06-11 | By Paul Krill

This release of the PS-TFS Connector provides the needed connection I discussed in this post: Project Server - Team Foundation Server Integration.

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Last year, I blogged a few times about a CodePlex project J.D. Meier was working on called Guidance Explorer (see my posts tagged with Guidance+Explorer). I thought Guidance Explorer had faded into patterns & practices history, but the reports of its demise were greatly exaggerated.

Take a look at this post from J.D. on using Guidance Explorer to mine and customize the growing body of Visual Studio Team System guidance underway in patterns & practices. As is becoming the fashion, he has a short video that shows you how.

If you are a hunter and gatherer of guidance, you'll want Guidance Explorer.  Watch Video: How To - Personalize Team System Guidance with Guidance Explorer to see how you can use Guidance Explorer to build a custom collection of guidance from our Visual Studio Team System Guidance project.  If you haven't used Guidance Explorer before, or it's been a while, you're in for a surprise.  Seriously.

Source: J.D. Meier's Blog : New Video: How To - Personalize Team System Guidance with Guidance Explorer

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J.D. Meier of patterns & practices fame blogged about New Prescriptive Guidance for Visual Studio Team System.

While Visual Studio Team System provides powerful new tools, customers are asking "where's the guidance?" ... "where do I start?" ... "how do I make the most of the tools?"  In response, our team is building a definitive Body of Guidance (BOG) for Team System. This includes How Tos, Guidelines, Practices, Q&A, video-based guidance, and more.

J.D. and his teammates have been working with Jeff Beehler and the Visual Studio Team System Rangers to plumb the depths of Team System, and capture guidance in true patterns & practices form. As you would expect, they're spending considerable time on Team Foundation Server, but they plan to cover the breadth of Team System. If you haven't seen the project, it's under development on CodePlex (Visual Studio Team System Guidance Project).

Source: J.D. Meier's Blog : New Prescriptive Guidance for Visual Studio Team System

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