Get More Bang for Your Buck
Getting the Most out of
Team Foundation Server

What You‟ll Learn (hopefully)
TFS can
Team
probably do
Foundation
more than you
Server is Greedy
think
More people
There are a lot
can use TFS
of TFS freebies
than you think

In Case You Didn‟t Know..

Feed Team Foundation‟s Narcissism
change requests Gimme!
source code
risks
issues
binaries
tasks
build data
use cases
test results
bugs
helpdesk tickets
requirements

Get More Bang for Your Buck
VERSION CONTROL

Don‟t Pigeon-Hole TFS
• TFS is NOT a re-branded VSS
• TFS is NOT just for .NET development
– “If you can save it”
• Any file size, any file type

Keep your Shelves Tidy
• Don‟t keep them for
too long
• Share files, do peer
reviews
• Save WIP

Don‟t Hate, Annotate!
• Use it for Good, not Evil (or try not to, at
least)
• Identify intra-file historical changes

Annotate
DEMO

Hey, you in the 3rd row.
Are you sleeping? It’s the
last session! Stick it
out, then go get a beer!

Get More Bang for Your Buck
WORK ITEM TRACKING

Don‟t Re-Create, Relate!
• Create related work items
– Eliminate a lot of copy & paste
• Link test results, but also the tests
themselves

Office: Your Unspoken Hero
• SQL Reporting Services is cool, but not for
everyone
• What about Excel & Visio?

Excel Reporting & TFS
DEMO

Get More Bang for Your Buck
OTHER STUFF

F5 is NOT a Build System
• Test Drive Team Build
• Several Build Scenarios
– Continuous
– Rolling
– Scheduled
– Ad-hoc
• Heck, build your
database, too.. (gasp!)

“Fire and Forget” User Licensing
Take
advantage of Expands
New in 2008 Potential TFS
Licensing Footprint
Change
NO TFS CAL Viewing/Editing
Creating work
work items
needed when: items
created by user
Slimmed Down Confines UI to
Use WIWA Web Access CAL-less model
Integrate TFS Cross-post
Partners can
with Existing tickets into TFS
help (plug, plug)
work items
Helpdesk

Everyone Needs a Power Tool
Windows Explorer Extension
•
Team Members
•
Check-in Policy Pack
•
Alerts Editor
•
Power Shell Extensions
•
Command Line
•
– Unshelve, rollback, treeclean
• Process Template Editor

Power Tools
DEMO

What‟s in the Pipe?
• Hierarchical Work Items
• Version Control
– First class branches
– Visualize branch relationships
• Drag & Drop Merging
– Track change across branches
• History, Timeline, Annotate
• Workflow-based Build

If we have time, love to hear „em!
QUESTIONS?