Planet SCM

One of the new features we've added to TSWA for the SP1 release is the ability to create URLs that are effectively work item templates by virtue of the fact that they have the values for the work items embedded in the URL itself.

Since constructing these URLs manually is really painful, we have an icon on the work item editor when you are creating a new work item that creates the URL and places it in the Windows clipboard.

Bring up the new work item form, fill in whatever values you want to get automatically set each time you use the URL, and then click the "globe with chain link" icon below the Save button.

Then you’ll get a pop-up message like this letting you know the template URL is now in the clipboard.

When you paste the contents of the clipboard, you'll get a link like this.

http://myserver:8090/UI/Pages/WorkItems/WorkItemEdit.aspx?pname=Orcas&wit=Orcas%20Bug&[System.Title]=Bug%20Bash%3A&[System.AreaPath]=Orcas%5CBuild%5CTeam%20Build&[System.IterationPath]=Orcas%5CRosario%5CBeta&[Microsoft.VSTS.Dogfood.IssueType]=Code%20Defect&[Microsoft.VSTS.Common.Severity]=2&[Microsoft.VSTS.Common.Priority]=2&[Microsoft.VSTS.Common.OpenBuild]=21022.08&[Microsoft.VSTS.Dogfood.OpenedBranch]=Orcas%20RTM&[Microsoft.VSTS.Dogfood.HowFound]=Dogfooding&[Microsoft.VSTS.Dogfood.Source]=Development&[Microsoft.VSTS.Dogfood.ProductUnit]=TFS&[Microsoft.VSTS.Dogfood.TeamLevel1]=Team%20Build&[Microsoft.VSTS.Dogfood.Blocking]=Not%20Blocking

That link will create a new Orcas Bug work item in the Orcas team project that I can use to quickly file a bug on the TFS Build feature.

• Title starts with "Bug Bash:"
• Area Path is "Orcas\Build\Team Build"
• Iteration Path is "Orcas\Rosario\Beta"
• Issue Type is "Code Defect"
• Severity is "2"
• Priority is "2"
• Build is "21022.08"
• Branch is "Orcas RTM"
• How Found is "Dogfooding"
• Source is "Development"
• Product Unit is "TFS"
• Team Level 1 is "Team Build"
• Blocking is "Not Blocking"

With all of that filled in automatically, all I need to do after clicking the link is fill in the Description and Repro Steps.  That's a lot faster!

Previous tip: TSWA tip: Copy a bug to quickly file a new bug in an area related to the original

We get a reasonable amount of feedback from BizTalk users that would like a more seamless experience working with Team System and BizTalk.  The number one complaint that I hear is that building BizTalk with Team Build is very difficult.  The underlying reason for this is that BizTalk does not use msbuild for building their projects.

I've been working with the BizTalk team for the past several months to try to figure out how to fit this support in.  I'm very happy to say that I've just been informed that they will be getting it into the upcoming BizTalk Server 2006 R3.  I think this will be a nice improvement for all of you BizTalk/TFS users out there.  You can read more about the R3 release here: http://blogs.msdn.com/stevemar/archive/2008/04/23/biztalk-server-platform-updates.aspx.  Although this post doesn't mention the Team Build support specifically, I've been told it will be there.  Of course that goes with my usual caveat of "plans are always subject to change", but we'll keep working with them to help make sure we can deliver this great feature.

Now I'm off to talk to the SQL Server Reporting Services team to get them to commit to a release to add this support in :)  Those are the two I hear the most customer requests for.  If there are more that are important to you, let me know and I'll see what we can do.

Brian

We've just released a new version of the TFS Power Tools.  This new Power Tool release will work only with the VS/Team Explorer 2008 client (but against either a TFS 2005 or TFS 2008 server).  If you haven't taken the time to upgrade yet, I highly recommend it - you are missing out on lots of great new value we are delivering.

Although this release is not quite as big as the record setting December '07 Power Tools release, it's packed with great stuff.  It's got something for almost everyone but the largest portion will probably be most useful to TFS administrators.  We know TFS administrators have been hurting and we are working hard to make their lives easy.

There are actually 2 downloads for this Power Tools release.  You can read below for details as to why.

TFS 2008 March '08 Power Tools

64-bit TFS 2008 Sharepoint extensions installer

In addition to the new features listed, we have fixed quite a few Power Tools bugs.  I don't have a complete list to share but I'm told there are some very important fixes that you will want if you use the Power Tools.  The new features include:

• Process Template Editor support for custom work item controls - This has been, perhaps, the most commonly requested enhancement.  Anyone using custom work item controls knows that it has meant going back to editing XML for any work item type changes.  This new feature allows you to continue to use the GUI editor when using custom controls.
• TFSServerManager client - Long ago, I posted screen shots of the TFSServerManager tool we've written to monitor what's going on in a TFS server.  The tool has finally made it into the Power Tools.  The accompanying TFSServerMonitor that provides availability and performance counter data has not yet made it but we hope to get that into a future release.  None-the-less, TFSServerManager alone, provide some great capability, including the ability to produce reports like the dogfood statistics posts that I do for our DevDiv server every month.
• TFS BPA support for Windows Server 2008 - In addition to various rule improvements and bug fixes, we have updated the TFS Best Practices Analyzer to work on Windows Server 2008.  This enables this valuable tool to help trouble shoot issues on all supported operating systems while providing the minimal amount of "noise" and inappropriate warnings.
• Work Item Template improvements - We've made a ton of usability improvements to the existing work item template Power Tool features.  If you haven't tried out this feature yet, I strongly recommend it.  It's a great way to pre-populate template bug reports (and other types of work items) with much of the required data and reduce the overhead of entering lots of similar kinds of bug reports.  The biggest improvements include:
  • Work item templates have moved from a separate tool window to a new node in the Team Explorer window (including support for organizing them in folder, cut/copy/paste, drag & drop, etc.

• Editing work item templates now happens in a tool window in the document well rather than the somewhat odd looking scrollable modal dialog that it used to use.  This includes full document integration - toolbar support, dirty state, etc.
• With the integration into tool windows, we were able to significantly simplify the menu structure and reduce clutter.
• Scriptable Team Project creation - Oh my has this one been on the back log for a while.  It was a very common request right after we release TFS 2005 and we've finally gotten around to doing something about it.  This Power Tools release includes a new tfpt command - "tfpt createteamproject" that can be used to create new Team Projects in scripts rather than having to use the GUI.  There are a few important caveats here though.  First, it will only work if you also have Team Explorer 2008 SP1 installed on the machine.  There is a new API in Team Explorer 2008 SP1 that enables this new Power Tool command line.  Team Explorer 2008 SP1? you say?  How do I get that?  Well, SP1 hasn't released yet and I haven't even blogged the new feature set in it yet.  I expect some developments in those departments shortly.  I hope to blog the feature set of TFS 2008 SP1 shortly and for the Beta release of TFS 2008 SP1 to follow soon after that.  Keep your eyes peeled and know that once you get TFS 2008 SP1, this Power Tool feature will light up and suddenly scripting Team Project creation will become practical.  Oh, an by the way, using Team Explorer 2008 SP1 and this Power Tool release, you can automate Team Project creation against both TFS 2005 and TFS 2008 servers.
• Support for 64-bit Sharepoint farms - Due to an unfortunate oversight in TFS 2008, our WSS installation tool does not support 64-bit Sharepoint.  We are rectifying this oversight with this new release of the TFS Power Tools.  We now have a TFS WSS extensions installer that will work on 64-bit Sharepoint installations.  Because this will only be needed by a few administrators/operations personnel, we chose not to include it in the main Power Tools download but instead to make it a separate download that can be found here.
• Unshelve to a different branch - tfpt unshelve now supports a new option "tfpt unshelve /migrate" that will unshelve a shelveset to a different branch than it was originally authored in.  This provides a handy way to move pending changes from one branch to another without checking them in and merging and without having to do a bunch of manual work to figure out the common base version between the branches and work out the merge relationships.  A very handy addition that we use quite a lot internally.
• Improvements to tfpt review - We use tfpt review internally for managing code reviews and have gotten a bunch of feedback on how it could be better - particularly in performance of moving between the file changes.  We've made several improvements to make the experience better.
• Delete global lists in the work item tracking system - tfpt destroygl now allows you to delete global lists from the work item tracking system.  Previously there was no way to eliminate a global list once it had been created.  In the future, I hope to see this ability incorporated into the Process Template Editor, but for now, at least it is available.
• Update bound Microsoft Office docs when the TFS server name changes - Bound Office documents (Excel spreadsheets and Project plans) include the TFS server name so that they can refresh their work item lists without prompting the user to connect to TFS.  Unfortunately, there has been no way to update the server name in the event that you rename your TFS server.  With the introduction of tfpt changedocurl, you can now update the server name, port number, etc in bound Office documents.
• Performance improvements in tfpt online - I'm not sure how many people this will be a big deal for, but it's been a big complaint internally where we have 10's or 100's of thousands of files in an average workspace.  If you have large workspaces and you use tfpt online, you will likely notice that it now puts less load on the server and takes less time.

That's it but as you can see it's a long list and it's got something for almost everyone.  I really hope you enjoy it and, as always, please send me any feedback you have.  We are committed to continuing to deliver high demand improvements at every opportunity.  I mentioned TFS 2008 SP1 in this post briefly.  As I said, I'll be blogging about it soon and I really can't wait.  The list of improvements is HUGE - probably twice the size of this list.  Add that to the new version of Team System Web Access that's being previewed now (see my earlier post) and it's an exciting time for VSTS 2008 users.

Thanks,

Brian

We continue in our effort to publish specs for features that are under development very early in the process so that we can incorporate your feedback before we are even done coding it.  We haven't published as many as I had hoped but we continue to emphasize the importance of it within the team and are starting to see some real momentum.  While I was out on sabbatical, 3 new specs were published.

Codename “TFS Bug Submission Portal” Power Tool for Team Foundation Server 2008 - This covers the new limited TFS access for users without CALs.  I just wrote a longer blog post about it announcing the availability of a CTP.

Send Mail from TFS - The spec for a new feature coming in TFS 2008 SP1 (more about that in the next week or two when I write a blog post about all the great stuff that's coming in SP1).

Core Linking Work Item Tracking - This spec covers the core enhancements to work item tracking that enables hierarchies, typed links and more coming in Rosario.  This underlying improvement is going to enable an amazing number of new scenarios.

Further, this week I am expecting to see 2 more specs published...

Query Folders - A feature for enabling you to organize your work item queries into a folder hierarchy.

Enterprise TFS Management - An overhaul of some of the TFS application architecture that is going to enable substantially greater deployment flexibility and manageability in the enterprise environment.

Keep your eyes peeled for the new specs and we look forward to your feedback on the ones we've already published if you haven't already given it.

Brian

Hakan has announced the availability of the new TSWA community technology preview (CTP) in his post, What's New in TSWA 2008 SP1.  Personally, I would say this release is beta quality or better, so don't let the CTP designation scare you too much.

Also released is the first CTP release of what we are calling Work Item Web Access (WIWA).  You may recall that we published a spec for it recently, referring to it as a "bug submission portal."  WIWA provides you with the ability to have folks create work items and view work items they have created without needing a client access license (CAL) for 2008.  This was a new condition that was added to the TFS 2008 license agreement.  Hakan has more details in his post on WIWA.

Both the CTP of TSWA and the CTP of WIWA have the same requirements as the previous release of TSWA 2008 (e.g., you must have Team Explorer 2008 installed as a prerequisite).

This release of TSWA has some really great new features.

• Single instance with multiple languages
• Support for specifying field values in the URL for creating new work items (works in both TSWA and WIWA)
• Share ad-hoc work item queries
• Shelveset viewer
• Improved search support

I want to call out two features in particular that I really like.

Support for specifying field values in the URL for creating new work items (works in both TSWA and WIWA)

How often have you wanted users or testers to file bugs and needed to have them fill in certain fields with particular values so that the work item shows up in the correct area?  We now support providing field values in the new work item URL.  Here's the example that Hakan provided.

http://<server>/wi.aspx?pname=MyProject&wit=Bug&[Title]=Bug Bash&[AssignedTo]=Hakan Eskici&[Iteration Path]=MyProject\Iteration2&[FoundIn]=9.0.30304

This will open a new work item editor window with the following initial values:

• Team Project = MyProject
• Work Item Type = Bug
• Title = Bug Bash
• Assigned To = Hakan Eskici
• Iteration Path = MyProject\Iteration2
• Found in Build = 9.0.30304

Now you can start sending your users and testers a link with all of this already filled in!

Improved search support

Have you ever wanted to search for bugs assigned to someone in particular or in a particular area without writing a query?  In the past, you could only search the Title and Description fields in a work item, which I described here.  Now you can enter the following into the search box in TSWA to find any bug assigned to me that also has the word "exception" in the Title or Description.

exception a="Buck Hodges"

The core fields have shortcuts.  Any field can be used by specifying the reference name for the field.  Here's the equivalent without using the shortcut.

exception System.AssignedTo="Buck Hodges"

Here are the shortcuts for the core fields.

• A: Assigned To
• C: Created By
• S: State
• T: Work Item Type

You can use TFS macros, such as @me, in search.  For example, find all work items containing "watson" in the Title or Description that are assigned to me that are in the Resolved state and are work items of type Bug.

watson a=@me s=Resolved t=Bug

Now, if you really want to do something cool, there are the "contains" and "not" operations.  The "=" operator matches exact phrases, whereas the ":" operator is used for "contains" clauses.  The following search looks for bugs assigned to Active (i.e., not assigned to any particular person yet) where the word "repro" is contained in the History field.

a=Active History:repro

This example illustrates the difference between the two operators.  The first example finds all work items where the Title is exactly "Bug Bash" with no other words or characters in it.  The second example, which uses the contains operator (colon) rather than the exact match operator (equals), finds all bugs where the Title contains the phrase "Bug Bash" along with any other words or characters.

• Title="Bug Bash"
• Title:"Bug Bash"

Personally, I find myself almost always using the contains operator.

Finally, you need to be able to exclude certain things from your search.  For that, there is the not operator, which is represented by the hyphen ("-").  The following example finds all work items with "watson" in the Title or Description fields that are not assigned to me and that are not closed.

watson –a=@me –s=closed

The not operator only works with field references, so you can’t use the following to find all work items containing "watson" but not containing "repro" in the Title and Description fields.

watson –repro

However, you can accomplish this by specifying the Title field explicitly with the not operator.

watson –Title:repro

Please send us your feedback on both the new features and Work Item Web Access!

Bill Essary did a fantastic talk this week on how TFS works in a distributed environment.  This talk shows how the various TFS components communicate.  It gives guidance on how these communication paths put constraints on the network topology.  It explains how these constraints can be applied in a distributed development environment.  It also includes some great links at the end for further reading.  I've attached a copy of the deck to this blog post.

Brian

The documentation for the team build 2008 object model is now available as a CHM file.  Later this year, I'm told that the MSDN web site will be updated.

http://download.microsoft.com/download/5/f/8/5f872c2e-4221-410b-b86e-4c3cd831b0c4/Team Foundation Build Managed Reference.chm

After you download it you will need to right click it, choose Properties, and then select “Unblock” before you can view it.

This documentation is newer than what Aaron posted back in August.

The following are posts with examples of using the 2008 object model.

• Adding Build Steps to Team Build in Orcas
• Team Build Object Model - Queueing a Build
• Stop piling on when the build breaks: Build checkin policy for Continuous Integration in Orcas

Part of our plan for the TSWA 2008 Power Tool is to release localized versions.  Japanese is the first language to become available.  Chinese, German, Spanish, French, Italian, and Korean are currently planned for release over the next month.

Here's the download page in Japanese, along with a link to it.

Team System Web Access (??? TeamPlain) ??Visual Studio 2008 Team Foundation Server ? Web ??????????????

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Team System Web Access 2008 ???????????????Team System Web Access 2008 ??Team Foundation Server ???????????????????????Team System Web Access 2008 ???? Team Foundation Server ??????????Team Foundation Server ????????????????????????
??

• ??? : ?????????????????????????????
• ??? : ??????????????? ?????????
• ??? : ?????????????????????????????????
• ?????????????????????
• ???????????????????????????
• ???????????????????????????
• SharePoint ??? ????????????????????????????????????????????
• ????????PDF ????? Excel ??????????
• ??????????????????????????????????????????????????
• ????????????????????
• ?????????????????

Here's a nice blog series I ran across on requirements management with Team System, Team Foundation Server and some 3rd party products.  We are also working on a whitepaper to provide an overview of this.

http://blogs.msdn.com/slange/archive/2007/11/06/requirements-management-in-tfs-part-1-of-4-overview.aspx

http://blogs.msdn.com/slange/archive/2007/11/06/requirements-management-in-tfs-part-2-of-4-tfs-out-of-the-box.aspx

http://blogs.msdn.com/slange/archive/2007/11/06/requirements-management-in-tfs-part-3-of-4-integrations.aspx

http://blogs.msdn.com/slange/archive/2007/11/06/requirements-management-in-tfs-part-4-of-4-summary.aspx

Brian

Yesterday someone forwarded me a link to a Minnesota user group presentation on using TFS and Teamprise in a mixed .NET and Java shop.  Being, admittedly, somewhat biased, I thought it was a terrific presentation on their experiences and felt is was worth sharing.  If you (like so many organizations) do both .NET development and Java development, TFS + Teamprise can be a terrific solution for you.

The one thing that made me feel bad was that they mentioned they had problems with TS Web Access and Firefox.  I've asked the team to look into that (contacting the author if necessary) to understand it and make sure it works well on Firefox.

Brian

As with Team Foundation Server 2005, we are publishing a utility that you can run on your TFS server to determine what version of TFS it is and, if it is trial, how many days remain until it expires.  It also enables you to extend trials by 30 days.

The program is called TFSVersionDetection.exe and is attached to this blog post (or can be requested from Customer Support).  I recommend that you run the tool on the TFS server itself.  You can run it from another machine and point it at the TFS server but it does a less thorough job of detection (due to permissions issues, etc).  If you run it on the TFS server and press the "Check" button, you will see a screen that look something like the following.

If you are within 10 days of expiration of a Trial Edition or pre-release (Beta 2 or RC) install, an "Extend" button will show up in the lower left hand corner.  Pressing it will extend the expiration another 30 days.  For Trial Edition (not for pre-releases), the "Extend" button will show up again when your 30-day extension nears an end.  Pressing it at this point will bring up a dialog that asks for a new Trial ID.  It is possible to extend it another 30 days if absolutely necessary.  To do this, you will need to contact your Microsoft sales rep and ask them to help you get a new Trial ID.  If they don't understand the process, they can email me at bharry@microsoft.com and I will help them.

Brian

Now that Team Foundation Server 2008 keys/media/downloads are available, I'm seeing lots more questions about various scenarios.  I'm going to try to capture all of the less obvious issue here:

You have TFS 2008 Trial Edition installed and you want to upgrade to TFS Standard Edition

You need to go to Add/Remove programs and click Change/Uninstall on your TFS installation.  This will display a dialog in which you should click on "Upgrade".  You can then enter a new product key.  If you bought full packaged product (and actually got media) you will have the key you need in the material you purchased.  It's not so simple for volume license customers because they don't actually get media - they download the bits from the volume licensing web site and the key is not obvious.  The "official" policy is that you are supposed to call Customer Support and ask for your product key.  There is a simpler way, if you choose.  If you look in your download for a folder called "AT" (stands for Application Tier).  You will find a file called "setup.sdb".  Open that file in notepad (or any text editor).  Search for "[Product Key]?.  The next line is your product key.  You can enter this string into the dialog presented from Add/Remove programs and click OK.  Your TFS server is now fully upgraded to Standard Edition.

You have TFS 2008 Trial Edition installed and you want to upgrade to Workgroup Edition 

You must uninstall trial (your data will not be lost - although backups are always advisable) and install Workgroup Edition.

You have TFS 2008 Workgroup Edition installed and you want to upgrade to TFS Standard Edition

This scenario is intended to work like #1 (upgrade trial to standard), However, there is a bug that makes this a bit tricky.  If you use Add/Remove Programs to enter a new product key, you will find that the product key field is greyed out - this is not "by design".  I've been told that if you run setup from the media (rather than Add/Remove Programs), the ID field will not be read-only.  Alternatively, you can uninstall Workgroup Edition and then install Standard Edition.  As far as getting the proper product key (for volume license users), see # 1 above.

You have TFS Beta 2 or Release Candidate

TFS 2008 Beta 2 and Release Candidates releases are about to expire (the RC expires in the next week or two and the Beta expires in mid March).  Please make sure you upgrade VERY SOON.  You can upgrade to TFS 2008 Trial Edition, Workgroup Edition or Standard Edition.  You will perform the upgrade by unintalling the Beta or RC and then installing your chosen edition.  If they actually expire, you have a 1 time only shot at extending it for 30-days (using the new TFSVersionDetection tool that you will find in this blog post).

You have TFS 2005 and want to upgrade to TFS 2008

 As a general rule, this is straight forward.  You just uninstall TFS 2005 (all your data will be preserved) and install TFS 2008.  New client and old clients will both work.  By far the trickiest part will be upgrading from Sharepoint 2.0 to Sharepoint 3.0 (2007) or MOSS 2007.  My best advice is read the corresponding upgrade instructions (ours and/or WSS).  The TFS installation guide is here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=FF12844F-398C-4FE9-8B0D-9E84181D9923&displaylang=en. And here's a reference to the Sharepoint upgrade instructions: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/office/sharepointserver/bb421259.aspx

Brian

Koders, a popular development search tool, has announced support for searching Team Foundation Servers.  In addition to the ability to index your source, work items, etc, they have a Visual Studio plugin that enables access from within Visual Studio and integration in the Team System Web Access that enables it from within the Team System web experience.  Check it out!

·         Koders Pro for .NET Developers: http://www.koders.com/corp/products/pro/microsoft-net/

Brian

There's a great new video on the MSDN web site by Richard Hundhausen that goes over the new features in Team Foundation Build 2008.  It's one of the featured videos this week.  The video covers the major new features and provides a great introduction to the product.

How Do I: Learn the New Features and Capabilities of Team Foundation Build 2008?

In this video, Richard Hundhausen explores the new features and capabilities of Team Foundation Build 2008, including defining and managing build definitions, agents, qualities, and retention policies.

Presented by Richard Hundhausen on November 20, 2007
Length: 14 minutes 33 seconds

 

Video Downloads:

ZIP | WMV | iPod | MP4 | 3GP | Zune | PSP

You can find more Visual Studio Team System videos at "How Do I?" Videos for Team Suite.

Today we have released the final version of the Team System Web Access (TSWA) 2008 power tool!  Team System Web Access provides a web interface to Team Foundation Server 2008.

Here's a list of feature changes.  Of course, we also fixed a number of bugs.

• New direct links: Previously, you could construct a direct link to a work item (http://mytfs:8090/wi.aspx?id=123).  Now you can also construct direct links to more features, and the direct links no longer open the main TSWA page, making them more responsive.  Keep reading to find out how to use them.
• Performance improvements: The code now uses server memory more efficiently, resulting in increased performance.
• Custom work item controls: First introduced in the CTP, we have continued to refine support for custom work item controls in TSWA.  To take advantage of this feature, you'll need to implement web versions of your existing custom controls.  You'll find documentation for it in the SDK folder underneath the folder where you install TSWA.  The following examples have been added since the CTP, in addition to the samples for checkbox, a work item picker, and a multi-value selector.
  • How to validate a work item on the client-side (Javascript)
  • How to validate a work item on the server-side
  • How to design a control whose field depends on the values of other fields
  • How to design a control that changes other field values (such as the WI state) and saves the work item
• Team Build 2008 support: Also introduced in the CTP, you can view the build queue and queue new builds, which are features that are new for TFS 2008.

For those of you who remember the need for the TSWA users group in the installation of the TSWA 2005 power tool, you'll be happy to know that is gone.  That was something we had to add to satisfy security requirements, but we've since changed the code to handle the impersonation better such that impersonated user identities no longer need access to any of the local directories for cache files and user settings (i.e., the code reverts to the service account while it accesses those).

Note that you need to install Team Explorer 2008 on the computer before installing TSWA 2008.

Direct Links

Here is the list of direct links and examples showing how to construct them.  The previous releases only supported direct links to work items, and Neno Loje has a great post on how to modify work item alert emails to use TSWA links.  The new direct links, such as diff, provide the ability to make the checkin email alerts really useful, too (more on that later).

• Work item tracking
  • Work item editor
    • Open the existing work item with ID 1234: http://mytfs:8090/wi.aspx?id=1234 
    • Create a new work item of type Bug in team project TeamProject:  http://mytfs:8090/wi.aspx?pname=TeamProject&wit=Bug
  • Query editor
    • Open the query editor to create a new query: http://mytfs:8090/qe.aspx?pname=TeamProject
    • Edit the existing public query (under "Team Queries") called "Team Bugs" (scope is either public or private, which corresponds to Team Queries or My Queries, respectively, in English systems): http://mytfs:8090/qe.aspx?pname=TeamProject&name=Team%30Bugs&scope=public
  • Query results
    • Execute the private query (under "My Queries") called "My Bugs": http://mytfs:8090/q.aspx?pname=TeamProject&name=My%30Bugs&scope=private
• Version Control
  • Changeset details
    • Display the details for changeset 1234 by specifying the changeset number: http://mytfs:8090/cs.aspx?cs=1234
    • Display the details for changeset 1234 by specifying the artifact URI: http://mytfs:8090/cs.aspx?csuri=vstfs:///VersionControl/Changeset/1234
  • History
    • Display the version history of the file or folder identified by item ID 789: http://mytfs:8090/history.aspx?item=789
    • Display the version history of the file $/TeamProject/Secret/foo.cs (specify del=N where N is the deletion ID if the file is deleted): http://mytfs:8090/history.aspx?path=$/TeamProject/Secret/foo.cs 
    • Display the version history of the directory tree at $/TeamProject/Secret (history of a folder is recursive; specify del=N where N is the deletion ID if the folder is deleted): http://mytfs:8090/history.aspx?path=$/TeamProject/Secret 
  • Compare files (diff)
    • Display the differences between the latest version of two different files, identified by item IDs 789 and 3456 ("o" indicates the original version that will be displayed on the left, and "m" indicates the modified version that will be displayed on the right): http://mytfs:8090/diff.aspx?oitem=789&mitem=3456
    • Display the differences between two different versions of the same file, identified by item ID 789 and changesets 100 and 200: http://mytfs:8090/diff.aspx?oitem=789&ocs=100&mitem=789&mcs=200
    • Display the differences between the latest version of two different files, identified by path (specify del=N where N is the deletion ID if the file is deleted): http://mytfs:8090/diff.aspx?opath=$/TeamProject/Secret/foo.cs&mpath=$/TeamProject/SecretBranch/foo.cs 
    • Display the differences between two different versions of the same file, identified by path and changesets 100 and 200 (add the appropriate deletion ID, odel=N or mdel=M, for deleted files): http://mytfs:8090/diff.aspx?opath=$/TeamProject/Secret/foo.cs&ocs=100&mpath=$/TeamProject/SecretBranch/foo.cs&mcs=200
  • View file
    • View the contents of the file identified by the item ID 789: http://mytfs:8090/view.aspx?item=789
    • View the contents of the file $/TeamProject/Secret/foo.cs (specify del=N where N is the deletion ID if the file is deleted): http://mytfs:8090/view.aspx?path=$/TeamProject/Secret/foo.cs
  • Annotate (blame)
    • Display an annotated view of file $/TeamProject/Main/foo.cs (specify del=N where N is the deletion ID if the file is deleted): http://mytfs:8090/ann.aspx?path=$/TeamProject/Main/foo.cs
    • Display an annotated view of file $/TeamProject/Main/foo.cs up until changeset 123 (specify del=N where N is the deletion ID if the file is deleted): http://mytfs:8090/ann.aspx?path=$/TeamProject/Main/foo.cs&cs=123
    • Display an annotated view of file identified by item ID 789: http://mytfs:8090/ann.aspx?item=789
    • Display an annotated view of file identified by item ID 789 up until changeset 123: http://mytfs:8090/ann.aspx?item=789&cs=123

I've started a series of posts called TSWA Tips to help folks get the most out of Team System Web Access.

Enjoy!

Today we are releasing the "final" TFS 2008 based release of the Web Access Power Tool.  I put "final" in quotes because the release model for Power Tools is a little different than for our major product versions.  Rather than releasing "big" releases every couple of years, we release smaller ones as needed.  So I fully expect there will be a few updates to the current tool before the Rosario version ships.

This final release is very similar the the last CTP we released but is now complete and ready for prime time.  In addition to fixing as many bugs as we could find, this new release of Web Access includes:

New linkable web pages - This is, perhaps, the coolest feature in the release.  It allows you to easily link to work items, work item queries, work item query results, Changesets, File/Folder history, file differences, file contents and annotated views of files.  This makes TSWA a far more powerful building block for integration with other applications.  In fact, we've already started work to leverage this from notification emails so that you can get a richer experience.  Because the notification emails are user configurable, you can read Neno Loje's poston how to modify work item alert emails to use TSWA links.  Look forward to some future suggestions on how you can customize your checkin notification to get a richer experience using TSWA.  See Buck's post for details on how to use the new TSWA links.

Custom work item controls - Web Access now supports custom work item controls.  Now it is possible to create a rich client version and a web version of custom work item controls and have your fully customized experience available no matter which interface your users access.  You'll find documentation for writing custom controls in the SDK folder under you TSWA installation folder.

Team Build support - Web Access has been updated to support several of the new features in TFS 2008 for build automation.  Most importantly, it allows you to view the queue of builds and queue new builds.

Performance improvements - Every release of Web Access includes more performance improvements.  The more we use the tool internally, the more we learn about it.  Every time we find issues, we fix them and release them to you as soon as possible.  The big performance improvements in this release are around server memory consumption.

No more TSWA users group - The 2005 Power Tool required that you manage a user group of web access users for security reasons.  We've improved the server side impersonation and directory management to eliminate the need for this.  TSWA can now manage access securely just using the permission settings you already have and no longer requires a "special" restricted group.  This should make managing TSWA easier.

Documentation - It's not extensive but should be enough for you to find your way around TSWA.  You'll find it located here: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb892990(VS.90).aspx

Enjoy!

Brian

Like Team Explorer, Team System Web Access does not support work item templates yet (though you can get a power tool work item template add-in for Team Explorer 2005 -- look for power tools for TFS 2008 in December).  However, you can use the "Create Copy of Work Item" feature to copy a work item that's similar to the one you want to file.  Then you only need to change the information that's different for the new bug and save it.

To do this, click the triangle beside the work item you want to copy and choose "Create Copy of Work Item" from the popup menu.  This particular feature is not available from the Tools menu on the tool bar, unlike "Add Related Work Item" which shows up in both places.

Clicking on "Create Copy of Work Item" will present you with a list of team projects.  The list of work item types are shown in the next menu when you click on a team project.

Once you choose the work item type, the new work item will open in a new window with all of the fields filled in from the original work item (if you choose a different work item type than the original, only fields that appear in the original will be filled in for the new work item).  Change the fields that need to be different and save the work item to finish creating the new one.

Previous tip: TSWA tip: Send an email with a work item or query results

Let's say you're going through your bugs and want to ask someone a question about one of them.  You can use Team System Web Access to send that person an email containing all of the work item's information and a link to it.

To email a work item, open the work item in TSWA.  Go to the Tools menu shown below and choose Send as Email.

You'll get a new window where you can enter the person's full email address and type a message.  The message body contains a link to the work item in Team System Web Access and all of the work item's fields and contents.

You can also email query results.  As with the work item above, go to the Tools menu and choose Send as Email.

You'll then get a similar email window that contains the results of the query and a link so that the email recipient can run the same query.

Enjoy!

Have you ever wanted a quick way to find the bugs containing some word?  Team System Web Access comes to your rescue.

In the upper left corner underneath the team project selector, there is a search box.  Type in a word and hit Enter.  If you want to search for a phrase rather than a single word, simply enclose it in quotation marks (e.g., "team build" or "team foundation server").  Without the quotation marks, you'll be searching for all work items having all of those words (e.g., entering "team build" without quotation marks finds all work items containing both the word "team" and the word "build" rather than just the phrase "team build").

Here I'm searching for all work items containing the word "tfsbuild" that are in the Orcas team project.  This will find tfsbuild, tfsbuild.exe, tfsbuild.proj, etc.

Here are the results.  In this case I've found 65 bugs.  Had there been any reports containing that word in the title or description, each would have been listed as well (e.g., we have 17 reports in Orcas containing the word "feature").

In case you are thinking that it's only searching the titles, I've highlighted two work items below that don't have the term "tfsbuild" in the title but do contain it in another field (Repro Steps or History, in this case).

Enjoy!

[Update 11/9/07]  I've corrected the difference between searching for a phrase in quotation marks and a set of words in a work item.

Sara Ford has a Visual Studio Tip of the Day series going.  I thought I'd publish some tips on using Team System Web Access, and this is the first.  I don't think I'll be able to do a tip per day.  Calling it a "TSWA tip a few times a week" just doesn't sound that great.  So I'll just leave it as TSWA Tips.

In the regular Team Explorer (aka Team Foundation Client), you can't edit work items in bulk except by exporting them to Excel (at least as of Team Explorer 2008).  However, you can do this using Team System Web Access.

First, select the work items that you want to edit in bulk by clicking the checkbox beside each.  I've selected five bugs below.  Then, select Bulk Edit -> Edit Work Items from the drop down menu near the upper right hand corner (or upper middle, depending on how wide your window is).

Now you are presented with a window where you can edit the core fields of a work item.  While this is not as flexible as defining the fields to edit like you can using a custom query and exporting to Excel, it's really convenient.

Here they all have a State of Closed, and I'm changing all of the bugs to be assigned to Closed (they were previously assigned to me).  When you click Save, you will see the progress as each work item is updated.

And I've just noticed that we didn't catch the fact that "successfully" is misspelled.  I'll file a bug on that. ;-)