Visual Studio, VSIP Partners and more ...... : TFS

GamCom Talmia - An innovative process automation tool for TFS - Product and Video now available

terrycl — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 17:14:00 GMT

GamCom have just updated the website for Talmia to include a video demo .

Talmia is an innovative ALM process automation and reporting tool for Team Foundation Server. It uses Windows Workflow to automate and control work item creation, validations, email alerts, and more.

Talmia can be used to support any ALM process including iteration management, design, development, and testing. By implementing processes as intelligent workflows in TFS, Talmia benefits users by increasing the consistency, reliability, and effectiveness of process enforcement.

There are 4 easy steps to using Talmia:

Model your ALM processes using the drag-and-drop workflow designer tool. Processes can be created for any ALM phase and made compatible with any process template. You can even use the Process Template Wizard feature to create new process templates based on your processes.
Publish your process definitions to the web-based Talmia Control Centre. Here process versions can be managed and deployed to each individual Team Project. Each project can select the particular processes that it requires, e.g. based on methodology or technology choices.
Execute your processes within Visual Studio or any other TFS client. Once a process workflow is started, all required work items will be created, updated, validated etc. automatically according to your process definition. Talmia can also be configured to send email alerts, raise process errors, and/or call external scripts in response to particular process events.
Monitor running processes using Talmia’s comprehensive set of process reports. These complement TFS’s existing reports by adding a process level view of the project that can provide real insight into progress and potential issues. The reports are particularly useful for distributed or virtual teams.

Talmia allows processes to be rolled out incrementally either by ALM phase (design, development, testing etc.) or by project. Process definitions can also be refined or extended incrementally based on evidence from actual use. In this way, Talmia provides full control over every process version making it easy to realise the benefits of ALM process improvement - one step at a time.

Talmia is available now for TFS 2008 with a 2010 version coming in March.

If you are interested in using TFS for ALM process support, check out Talmia's website for more information or watch the video demo to see Talmia in action.

EMC/Conchango release Scrum for Team System V3 Beta 1

terrycl — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 01:54:00 GMT

EMC/Conchango have released Scrum for Team System V3 Beta 1 for use with VSTS/TFS 2010 Beta 1.

Version 3 is designed expressly for TFS 2010, taking advantage of the new platform’s capabilities.

Please be aware that the current beta version of Scrum for Team System has only been tested against TFS 2010 Beta 1; in the near future we will be testing against the forthcoming pre release versions of Visual Studio and will post the outcome of that testing.

Some of the highlights of version 3:

· Sophisticated multi-team support

o Individual team capacity and concurrent teams on different Sprint lengths

o Concurrent teams with the same Sprint length but different start & finish dates

o Add and remove teams on a per-sprint basis

· New QA Model

o Acceptance Test driven

o Microsoft Test & Lab Manager compatible

· New & Extended Reports (limited selection available in Beta 1 – more to follow)

· Event Service Enhancements – provides much more “heavy lifting” and less manual steps

o Transition – one field changing effects another

o Aggregation – sums up related fields

o XML rule set then determines next action

o Composite transition criteria

· Enhanced Work Item Queries

o Leverage hierarchical work item relationships

o Task based queries

If you are interested in participating in the program then please follow the steps below:

Use the following link to create an ID:
http://www.scrumforteamsystem.com/cs/user/CreateUser.aspx?ReturnUrl=/cs/Default.aspx
Wait for e-mail and then follow instructions to complete Registration.

Send an e-mail requesting to join the Scrum for Team System V3.0 Beta 1 program (Subject: Beta) to ScrumforTeamSystem@emc.com with your UserID and the e-mail address used to create the UserID.
They will send you an email with a link to the Scrum for Team System V3.0 Beta 1 Forum

To follow the latest developments on the Scrum for Team System blog: http://blogs.conchango.com/sfts/, which will also provide links out to the personal blogs of the team.

Maximize The Impact Of Team Foundation Server With Free Live Workshops.

terrycl — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 23:01:00 GMT

Make sure your business application development projects are advancing with the greatest possible efficiency, consistency, quality, and time to market with free ALM Catalyst Live Workshops.

ALM Catalyst Live Workshops are a series of two-hour interactive workshops; repeated over a period of sixteen weeks giving you the flexibility to fit with your schedule.

The ALM Catalyst Live Workshops are designed to enable development teams and achieve these key goals:

· Understand the potential of Team Foundation Server in the enterprise

· Identify gaps in current use of Team Foundation Server

· Create higher-quality, applause-generating software—with less time and stress

Topics covered include:

· Keeping Projects on the Rails (Reporting)

· Avoiding Unpleasant Surprises (Deployment)

· Quality Matters (Testing)

· Making Process Stick

These workshops will help you understand and implement Team Foundation Server (TFS) to help simplify and accelerate the software development process and improve quality for teams of all sizes.

Learn more and register for free live workshops at:

www.almcatalyst.com

The intended audiences for these workshops are software development leaders and team members who want to maximize the impact of their current Microsoft Team Foundation Servers and Team System projects.