My 2 cents on Areas and Iterations in Team Foundation Server

re: My 2 cents on Areas and Iterations in Team Foundation Server

Baskar — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 11:32:39 GMT

Awesome explanation !

Thank you ..

re: My 2 cents on Areas and Iterations in Team Foundation Server

Greg Randall NZ — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 20:47:51 GMT

Thanks, nice over view of areas and iterations. Now to go make my own :)

re: My 2 cents on Areas and Iterations in Team Foundation Server

StevenLange — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 17:01:55 GMT

@Dave - they can be redundant if you want them to be. However, the souce tree structure doesn't always represent the functional hierarchy or structure of a project. Letting areas be an independent field provides more flexibility when working with work items.

The main intersection (IMHO) between the source control structure is with Iterations. Yes, you can replicate Iterations with your releases/branches in source control. In Iterations, you can even further dissect releases into sprints, etc. to better help track progress for a given release.

Work items are associated with code in two ways: by linking (work item to changeset or versioned item), or by build (completed work items are associated with a build). Because of these other manners to align the two types of artifacts, you are free to use Areas & Iterations as you see fit - either closely mirroring the source tree, or in a more logical hierarchy that makes sense for your reports, and your business.

Hope this helps a little..

re: My 2 cents on Areas and Iterations in Team Foundation Server

Dave — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 04:55:28 GMT

Seems to me that areas are redundant with the source project organization and iterations redundant with release versions. How are areas and iterations supposed to work in conjunctions with the source tree organization for branching? Thanks!

re: My 2 cents on Areas and Iterations in Team Foundation Server

rnysuen — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 18:43:42 GMT

Hi,

Let say I have the following Iteration tree:

\MySite

\Release 1

\Phase 1 - Aug 1-15, 2010

\Phase 2 - Aug 16 - 30, 2010

\Phase 3 - Sept 1 - 15, 2010

\Phase 4 - Sept 16 - 30, 2010

\Release 2

\Phase 1 - Oct 1 - 15, 2010

\Phase 2 - Oct 16 - 31, 2010

And some urgent bug from customer and we need a hotfix for Release 1 while Release 2 development is on going. How should I capture and plan for the hotfix effort? Should I

i) create \MySite\Release 1\Phase 5 - Oct 16 - 31, 2010 so that it'll have the same time frame as \MySite\Release 2\Phase 2 - Oct 16 - 31, 2010

ii) include work items in Release 2 -> Sprint 2 - Oct 16 - 31, 2010 (will have to distinguish the work items somehow?)

Thanks,

re: My 2 cents on Areas and Iterations in Team Foundation Server

obautista — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 15:56:08 GMT

I hope you can help me. We have set up permissions on Areas and Iterations within each Team Project. We have multiple levels of Areas and Iterations. For example, we have a Parent Iteration, a Child, and a Sub-Child. When I assign permissions to Jane Doe to Parent Iteration she does not get access to Child and Sub-Child. Is this correct? I was thinking assigning permissions to Parent should give her permissions to Parent and everything underneath (children).

Thanks for any help you can provide

re: My 2 cents on Areas and Iterations in Team Foundation Server

StevenLange — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 16:42:59 GMT

Luis,

Are you asking how you can add iterations in bulk? I would definitely not recommend going directly into the TFS database.

One option would be to use the SDK.

You'll want to do so using the ICommonStructureService.CreateNode method in the TFS SDK: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.teamfoundation.server.icommonstructureservice.createnode.aspx

This post should help you get started: http://teamfoundation.blogspot.com/2008/09/how-to-deal-with-areas-or-iterations.html

However, depending on how many iterations you want to add, it may just be more time-efficient to enter them manually.

Hope this helps!

re: My 2 cents on Areas and Iterations in Team Foundation Server

luis — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 15:55:20 GMT

how do you add multiple iteration dates at once? our iteration structure is as follows:

iteration

2010-01-01

2010-02-01

2010-03-01

2010-04-01

2010-05-01

can I do this directly in the TFS database?

re: My 2 cents on Areas and Iterations in Team Foundation Server

Flyingoat — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 16:45:45 GMT

So helpful post!! I learned a lot from this "simple" post.

Thank you very much, slange!

By the way, happy Thinksgiving!

re: My 2 cents on Areas and Iterations in Team Foundation Server

levidos — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 12:32:01 GMT

Thank you very much slange for this very useful post.