Teams WIT Tools : Power Tools

New Power Tool for handling display name change in TFS

sunder — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 23:14:00 GMT

In an earlier post, Dan had posted the details on how a display name change in Windows or Active Directory doesn't automatically get updated in all the areas in TFS. We had a tool to help address this issue that was available only through our Customer Support.

Now, in our latest Power Tool release, we have added a new tool (TfsUsers) that helps administrators update TFS when user display names are updated in Active Directory. Brian gave a preview of the available Power Tools in his post. We now have released the latest set of July '08 Power tools.

There are two commands available on this new tool: computedelta and update. The first command, computedelta, helps generate a snapshot of the current state of valid users in TFS and identifying the fields that store person data . This snapshot is used as a baseline for computing the user display names that changed at a later point in time and automatically generating a mapping file. The mapping file is used as an input for the update command which updates the display names in TFS.

The latest Power Tool removes the manual mapping file generation that was previously needed and is also more easily available than our old tool, TfsWitDisplayNames. TfsUsers will help you till our next release where we are plan to make the updates transparent.

Please let us know what you think by emailing 'tfswitf at microsoft.com' or leaving a comment.

Sunder Raman

Program Manager, Team Foundation Server

TFS Power Tools Release - Work Item Templates - Advanced Tips

Gregg Boer — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 18:39:41 GMT

This is the third and last post on a series of posts introducing the work item templates feature in the September, 2007 Power Tools release.

The first post introduced the feature. The second post talked about the bulk updates. This post will talk about some advanced tips with work item templates.

Tip #1 - Setting a default template

By right clicking on a template and selecting "Set default template"...

The template is marked with a special icon as the default. (NOTE the little "+" icon)

Now, whenever you select this menu option:

You immediately create a new work item based on the default template.

That is really not all that cool by itself, but when coupled with tip #2...

Tip #2 - Map a hot-key to create a work item from the default template

Select Tools | Options | Keyboard...

In that select the "Team.TfsWITTemplatesNewWorkFromDefaultTemplate" command, then map a short-cut key to it. You'll see in the example above that I've mapped Ctrl+Shift+Y.

The Team.TfsWITTemplatesNewWorkFromDefaultTemplate command will, as you might guess, create a work item from your selected default template.

In selecting a key to map to, you'll find that all the good shortcut key sequences are taken. (Like Ctrl-B starts the debugger, so you can't use that for "New Bug"). However, you can just play around until you find a key that works for you. Visual Studio supports the concept of Keyboard Chords, which are a sequence key strokes in succession.

What I like to do is map Ctrl+Shift+Y to all my work item short-cuts, then use a second key stroke to select the specific command. Here I've mapped Ctrl+Shift+Y followed by a "W" to create a new work item from the default template.

Now, if you press Ctrl+Shift+Y, you'll see this at the bottom title part of Visual Studio.

Then as soon as you press "W", it will open up the new work item form, based on your default template.

Then you can map characters to lots of useful work item tracking commands. Here are some examples:

Key	Command	What it does
Q	Team.AddQuery	Opens up the "New Query" window - useful for when you want to do a quick search.
P	Team.ShowProjectPortal	Opens up the project website
T	Team.TfsWITApplyTemplate	WIll open a dialog which allows you to select a template, then applies that template to the currently selected work item.

Tip #3 - Share templates between people

The work item templates power tool allows you to select where you want to store your template files. By default they are stored under your "My Documents" folder, however, you can set the file path to be a network share, so you can share templates.

Select "Team | Work Item Templates | Set Default Template Store Path...", and you'll see:

Browse and select a different path.

TFS Power Tools Release - Work Item Templates - Bulk Edit

Gregg Boer — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 17:44:16 GMT

In the introduction post, I introduced the Work Item Templates feature in the latest power tools release. This post will talk about how you can use work item templates to do bulk edits.

Let's take the following scenario: We want to move several tasks from one iteration into another.

Starting with a set of tasks that are all on the V1.1 iteration:

We'll create a template which only sets the Iteration Path. Note that we kept all other fields blank, even though they are required.

After saving the work item template, we look at our query again and select those items we want to move to Iteration V2

Then we right-click on the work item template we just created and select "Apply Template"

This will apply any values set in the template to all the work items selected in the query:

Select "Save All" and you are done. Pretty sweet, huh?

What if applying the template causes one of the selected templates to violate a business rule? TFS won't let you save, then you can open the work item and investigate what the problem is.

Some other applications I've come up with for this feature are:

Assigning to a particular area path, for example, taking a task or bug and moving it into my area.
Setting a state to Resolved or Closed. In fact, I keep a "Set to Resolved" and "Set to Closed" work item template handy for this purpose.

I'm sure you'll think of good ones as well.

TFS Power Tools Release - Work Item Templates - Introduction

Gregg Boer — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 20:37:48 GMT

Brian Harry introduced the power tools release in his blog. Work Item Templates is a new feature we've added in this latest version of the Power Tools release.

In short, Work Item Templates allows you to open a blank work item form, predefine the values of several fields, then apply that set of values at data entry time.

This is the first of a three-post series on this new feature:

Introduction (This post)
Bulk Apply
Advanced Tips

Since pictures speak louder than words, here is what you do to get started:

This displays the Template Tool Window. Here I've docked it to be a tabbed window with the Team Explorer:

To add a new template, press: "New Template...", which displays this dialog box:

Select the project and work item type you want to create a template for, and press OK...

Then you can fill out all the fields, as desired:

Press save, and you've created a new work item template

To use it, Right-click on it, and select "Create new work item"

The new work item form is loaded, with the values pre-filled:

NOTE:

The values we specified in the template are pre-set (e.g.: Area / Iteration)
If the template left the values blank, then the work item rules and defaults took over (e.g.: Assigned To is set to "Gregg Boer")

There's the introduction and should give you an idea of what you can do with this.

Here are examples of templates I've created:

Bugs for a very specific bug bash (Metal Up Testing)
Product Ideas - We store all of our ideas for future releases as a particular work item type. My template sets all my values, and makes it very easy to add new ideas to the list
Tasks for a specific project - Setting Area, Iteration, Feature fields

I'm sure you'll think of much more creative ideas.