Projects News

• Visual Studio Coded UI Microsoft Word Plug-in (VSCUG) … ready to ship after all assessments have been completed.
• Word4TFS (TFSWP) … team is evaluating the latest user experience improvements, in particular with the management of templates.
• Visual Studio 11 Readiness … the teams met the ALPHA review phase and are rebooting to meet the next upcoming milestones, such as the internal Microsoft TechReady 14 event and the BETA release.
  

These projects all delivered an ALPHA drop, which is being reviewed by the ALM Rangers and the product group:

• ALM Assessment Guide
• Branching and Merging Guide
• Microsoft Test Manager Guide
• Practical Kanban Guide
• Rangers Personas and Scenarios
• Requirements Engineering Guide
• Team Foundation Build Customization Guide
• Team Foundation Server Azure Practical Guide
• Team Foundation Server Process Template Customization Guide
• Team Foundation Server Team Project Planning Guide
• Team Foundation Server Upgrade Guide
• Test Release Management Guide
• Visual Studio Architecture Tooling Guide
• Visual Studio Coded UI Test Automation Guide
• Visual Studio Lab Management Guide
• Visual Studio Quick Reference Guide
• VM Factory Guide

Other projects which are part of the “Gig:

• BRDLite
• Practical Ruck Guide

Call to Action for all ALM Rangers!

• One thing we love is celebrating your successes.  Unfortunately not being omniscient we simply don’t know about many of them.  So if you have done or know of some outstanding contributions/actions please send them to Chuck and Willy to post in our internal newsletters that go to our upper management and the MVP leads.
• Calling all ALM Rangers to review the Visual Studio 11 Readiness ALPHA bits. We need your help!
• Update your personal contact details in the Ranger Contact Details list on the Rangers portal.
  

Community News

• No new Rangers were mentioned on the Rangers Index this month. If you are an ALM Ranger and not yet listed on the index … why not?
• Important (imminent) Dates
  - Public holiday in Canada … 2 Jan 2012 In Lieu of New Year's Day 
  - TechReady 14 … 30 January – 3 February 2012
  - Sabbatical (Michael Fourie & Bob Hardister … CodedUI) … end-January 2012
  - MVP Summit 2012 … 28 February – 2 March 2012 
    
  
  

Visual Studio Gallery and Other Bits and Pieces

• Team Explorer Profile Manager … a simple system tray utility that provides the ability to launch Visual Studio 2010 and select the active Team Foundation Server and Team Project Collection (TPC) in a single mouse click … by Jeff Bramwell
• Database Installation using VCDBCMD and WIX … by John Bergman
  
• A Brazilian Videocast recorded by Silfarney Wallace Ferreira for MS Brazil about ALM with VS 2010 - Manual and Automated Testing (in Portuguese) …http://msdn.microsoft.com/pt-br/vstudio/hh563952
  

Highlights during 2011

1. Francisco Fagas started a tenacious localization drive of the ALM Rangers guidance, which spilled over into other languages. See Rangers Guidance Localizations … Sprechen Sie Deutsch? … ¿Habla Español? for details.
2. The first ALM Rangers flash is published in February with the objective of creating a monthly awareness pulse.
3. The ALM Rangers start a quarterly series of articles in MSDN Magazine and other magazines.
   
   - MSDN Magazine Articles by the ALM Rangers
   - Daniel Oliveira published an article in the Mundo.net magazine
4. We had some major releases of new tooling and guidance:
   - Architecture Tooling Guidance Version 2.1 (ABE) is Available
   - We have shipped … Visual Studio Lab Management Guidance
   - We have shipped … Visual Studio Build Customization Guidance
5. We had Champion ALM Rangers who excelled in their passion for the community, their pedantic nature for technical accuracy, support for their fellow ALM Rangers throughout the year:
   - External Ranger Champions 2011.1 and “the” Champion of Champions are announced!
   
   - Bill Heys does it again … Worldwide Lead for the ALM Community within Microsoft 
   
   - (External) Visual Studio ALM Ranger Champions 2011.2 are known! Cowabunga!
   - ALM Ranger Champions – Willy’s nominations!
6. Bob visited Vancouver Development Center and Redmond for his ALM Rangers Sabbatical.
   
   - Tour of Vancouver Island with Bob during his Rangers Sabbatical
   - Visual Studio ALM Rangers Sabbatical – Bob shares his views
7. ALM Rangers release their 5-year report … Visual Studio ALM Rangers – 5 Year Report … sharing the essentials.
8. Bijan announces and drives the Dev11 Readiness “Gig” ... the biggest and most ambitious ALM Rangers project to date. ALM Rangers, like Chris Burrows, even start reporting instances of daunting dreams J
   - Visual Studio ALM Rangers recently called it a daunting but exciting adventure … what’s coming?
   - Understanding our Visual Studio 11 Readiness conspiracy
9. The ALM Rangers embrace dog fooding with complete commitment by committing the Dev11 Readiness “Gig” to the latest and greatest technologies without any contingency plans … there is only one way … “forward”!
   - Team Foundation Server on Windows Azure … Rucking along and visualizing the good, the bad and the ugly
   - Why we believe in dogfooding …
10. Some phenomenal events were driven, attended and/or enjoyed by the ALM Rangers:
    - MVP Summit 2011 … MVP2MVP2, Day 3 and 4 Pictures and
        A phenomenal prize giving event organized by Chuck! And the nominees and winners are …
    - TechReady 13 … T-1 days, T-0 Day 1, T+1 Day 2, T+3 Day 3-4
    - Visual Studio 11 Test Drive – Another great day @ the battle star :)
11. Willy start his usual pondering over things @ MSFT
    - Communications … common sense, challenges and objectives (mine)
    - Program Management – Thinking about PM != PM and the PM role in Microsoft
    - Program Management – Are some of the ALM Rangers Symbiotic PM’s?
    - Have I reached a design epiphany or am I finally lost in outer orbit?
    - Two events that introduce anomalies even into “Swiss” project planning

Closing Note

… A happy and safe festive season and holiday everyone!