PROJECT NEWS

Visual Studio Readiness “GIG” Wave #1

• http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkID=244348 is being updated to give you the latest view on the wave of ALM Ranger projects. The Branching Guidance, Coded UI Guide, Test Manager Guide and Team Foundation Service Practical Guide projects are the next candidates to cross the BETA line … watch the space!
• Some comments from the communities on our blogs:
  • Good job Rangers! Will we have ant guidance related to Database Projects?
  • This is simply awesome stuff. Outstanding quality - as always! Well done ALM Rangers!
  • Nice Material very helpful !!
  • Thanks very impressive!
  • Started looking through the beta documentation, particularly the TFS Planning and Upgrade guidance and I must say excellent job to the ALM Rangers on this stuff! This is a huge improvement over what was available for 2010. Really like the Personas and Customer Profiles sections, as my company closely aligns with one of the profiles. Also really like all the additional links and "I would like to..." reference tables. Really helps digest the information better and more easily find what you're looking for. Overall, great job all! Really looking forward to the Branching Guide and other solutions not yet released for beta.

Localized Announcements

• Portuguese, courtesy of Daniel Oliveira and Russian, courtesy of Vladimir Gusarov

Downloads Update (as @ 3/29 23:59 PDT)

• Currently the “Gig” front-runner is the Build Customization Guide, with the Practical Kanban, Quick Reference Guide and Architecture Tooling Guide competing for the second place.
  
• Some interesting stats:
  • Average daily downloads for new projects since SIM-SHIP: 221
  • Total downloads since January 1, 2009 of Dev10/11 focused ALM Ranger projects: 309,367
    

COMMUNITY NEWS

                                                     Michael Fourie

Rangers Index

• ALM Rangers who joined the index during March are: Jason Singh, Robert Bernstein, Alexander Vanwynsberghe, Esteban Garcia, Stefan Mieth and Taavi Koosaar

ECOSYSTEM NEWS

Downloads Update

• The new infrastructure working group (Dan Manson, Jeff Bramwell, Jim Szubryt, David V. Corbin, Robert MacLean and Prasanna Ramkumar) is hard at work to implement the new infrastructure we need for the new Ecosystem and to present a user friendlier experience to all ALM Rangers.

UserVoice

• Start using these UserVoice channels, else your “voice” will not be heard:
  • Visual Studio ALM Rangers (private) – If you are an ALM Ranger submit suggestions and allocate your votes in this forum.
  • Visual Studio (public) – If you are not an ALM Ranger, submit suggestions and allocate your votes using the Rangers Project category tag. Point your customers, partners, colleagues and friends to this channel if they have an idea, but are not ALM Rangers.

ALM Ranger Ideas (Interim peek into UserVoice)

Top 3 Ideas on Visual Studio ALM Rangers (private)

• Provide information on the changes in the Process Templates between the different TFS versions (49 votes)
• Team Build Customization - Common automation tasks missing (37 votes)
• Provide guidance around TFS server monitoring and health checks (30 votes)

Latest 3 Ideas on Visual Studio ALM Rangers (private)

• Master ALM Roadmap (3 votes)
• Dependency Management and Versioning (3 votes)
• Provide guidance on work item types (WITs) and customization (1 votes)

The only Rangers idea on Visual Studio (public)

• Make ALM Ranger Guides available on MSDN and eBooks (6 votes)

ACTIONS NEWS

ASK #1 – Quotes

• As always we would appreciate quotes from you or your communities in terms of the ALM Ranger solutions. Good news and positive quotes are invaluable!

ASK #2 – Pictures

• For the upgrade and planning project session I would appreciate if you can send me pictures we can use that show installations / environments that could probably have used a bit more planning … again a picture speaks a thousand words.

ASK # 4 - ALM Rangers Only

• 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.
• Update your personal contact details in the Ranger Contact Details to avoid losing access to the ALM Ranger infrastructure if you have not already done so!
• Update your personal activities in the Ranger FY12 Activity list to ensure your contributions will be recognized!

For more information refer to: Rangers Website | Rangers Solutions | Rangers Blog | Understanding the Visual Studio ALM Rangers
To include content in future Ranger Flashes: Send your one-two liners to us latest a week before the last day of the month