Visual Studio Team System User Education

Feedback Requested: Common Tasks

For our next release, we’d like your feedback about how we might improve our orientation topics. These topics contain introductory text, followed by links to and brief descriptions of other topics that carry a common theme, and we get frequent feedback that users dislike the current format.

Please review the following post and share your thoughts: http://blogs.msdn.com/vstsue/pages/feedback-requested-common-tasks-details.aspx

thanks,

-Steven

Draft Documentation Update for Moving Team Foundation Server from One Hardware Configuration to Another

We received word recently that the documentation for moving Visual Studio 2008 Team Foundation Server from one set of hardware to another is not accurate as currently documented on MSDN.  We investigated, and discovered that an undocumented change to the functionality of the renameDT command invalidated the steps as they currently exist.  After much investigation, rewriting, and some internal testing, we're posting a draft revision of that topic here.  This is draft documentation, but for those of you who have been trying to move your deployment to new hardware, it will hopefully prove useful.

As always, feedback is extremely welcome.  If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please feel free to leave them in comments, either to this post or to the article itself.

Thanks,

-=Susan

Sample Help File for Scenario Topics

Last June I posted a blog entry proposing a new concept called “Scenario Topics”. (See http://blogs.msdn.com/vstsue/archive/2007/06/25/scenario-topics.aspx).

The proposal was to replace orientation topics with scenario topics. Orientation topics are parent topics of a collection of related children topics in the table of contents. The concept is that a scenario topic provides a better context of what topics are under it, and how those topics most likely relate to the scenarios you are thinking about in that space. The following changes were proposed to accomplish this:

1.       A simple one sentence description about that section of content.

2.       A bulleted list of the tasks that you accomplish with that section of content. For example, you use a work item list to track status for a team.

3.       Additional bullet lists of information relevant to the technology in that section. For example, how you actually create work item lists, dealing with publishing errors, and so on.

4.       On the right side is a visual representation of the scenario. This could be an architectural view of the technology, a Venn diagram, a flowchart, or whatever best describes the scenario. The purpose of the graphic is to help someone quickly see the key elements being talked about in that section.

Recently our team built a sample help .chm file of what this would look like. We took existing content from sections about managing work items in Microsoft Excel, and Version Control, and reworked them into scenario topics.

In addition to the changes listed in the previous list, there are two more things we added to the .chm sample.

1.       Each scenario topic has a list of links at the bottom to the other scenario topics in the immediate area to aid navigation.

2.       Each leaf topic under the scenario topics has a thumbnail image that links back to the parent scenario. Again, this is to aid navigation and provide context about where you are at.

I want to get your feedback on this approach. We are posting the .chm file here for your evaluation. VSTF Help Scenario Topics.chm contains the scenario topics. Please download it and review the layout of the content. Let us know what you think about the scenario topics. Are there things you like or dislike? Are there things you would change?

To download the file, right-click the attachment at the bottom of this post and save the file to a local folder. Then you will need to right-click the file and choose to "unblock" it so that it displays properly. This is a security artifact of downloading .chm files. For more information about security and unblocking .chm files, see KB902225.

You can send feedback by commenting on this blog article. Or you can send me e-mail at davech@microsoft.com. I look forward to hearing your discussion.

Thanks!

David Chesnut

Content Lead

New End-to-End Articles for Visual Studio Team System 2008

I've begun work on a series of articles that will provide you with an end-to-end look at many of the new features of Visual Studio Team System 2008. This series focuses on a fictional company called Global Bank and how they use Team System to develop a new service for their Web site. The first article has been published on MSDN Online: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb967211(VS.90).aspx.

Team Foundation for Visual Studio Team System 2008 has shipped!

With a new version of Visual Studio Team System comes a new documentation set.  You can find updated versions of the Team Foundation Installation Guide at the Download Center. The latest versions of the Team Foundation Administrator guide and the Readme are also available at MSDN.

There is also a chance to chat live with Visual Studio Team System team members coming up on December 5th.  Join members of the Visual Studio Team System product group to discuss features available in Team Foundation Server, Team Suite, Architecture Edition, Development Edition, Database Edition, and Test Edition. In addition, discuss what's new for these editions for Visual Studio 2008.

There will be two sessions:

 Join the chat on Wednesday, December 5th, 2007 from 10:00am - 11:00am Pacific Time. Add to Calendar | Additional Time Zones

                -and-

Join the chat on Wednesday, December 5th, 2007 from 4:00pm - 5:00pm Pacific Time. Add to Calendar | Additional Time Zones

I hope you'll be able to join at least one of the chat sessions.  In the meantime, if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions about the documentation for Visual Studio Team System 2008, please drop us a line or leave us a comment and let us know!

Thanks,

Managing Documentation Projects in Team Foundation Server, Part 3: Reporting Status

The third post in my series on using TFS to manage documentation projects is available here.

http://blogs.msdn.com/teams_wit_tools/archive/2007/10/29/managing-documentation-projects-in-team-foundation-server-part-3-reporting-status.aspx

This one discusses the reports that we use.

Allen

Community Health for Visual Studio Team System - Part 3

In the second of four blog posts, I continue to look at the various community initiatives for Visual Studio Team System, the metrics that give an understanding of "community health", and our plans for the next year in these areas.

To read more, see http://blogs.msdn.com/vstsue/pages/community-health-for-visual-studio-team-system-part-3-details.aspx.

 -Steven

Content Lead, Team Edition for Database Professionals and member of the Visual Studio Team System Community Council

Managing Documentation Projects in Team Foundation Server, Part 2: Tracking Work Items

Here's part 2 of my series on managing content development with Team Foundation:

http://blogs.msdn.com/teams_wit_tools/archive/2007/10/22/managing-documentation-projects-in-team-foundation-server-part-2-tracking-work-items.aspx

Allen

Managing Documentation Projects in Team Foundation Server, Part 1: Planning the Sprint

I'm writing a series of blog posts over on the Team WIT Tools blog about how we're managing our documentation projects using TFS. Look here for the first post. http://blogs.msdn.com/teams_wit_tools/archive/2007/10/16/managing-documentation-projects-in-team-foundation-server-part-1-planning-the-sprint.aspx

Allen

Community Health for Visual Studio Team System - Part 2

In the second of four blog posts, I continue to look at the various community initiatives for Visual Studio Team System, the metrics that give an understanding of "community health", and our plans for the next year in these areas.

To read more, see http://blogs.msdn.com/vstsue/pages/community-health-for-visual-studio-team-system-part-2-details.aspx.

 -Steven

Content Lead, Team Edition for Database Professionals and member of the Visual Studio Team System Community Council

Announcing Operations Guidance for Team Foundation Server

One of the key pieces of feedback we've heard about Team Foundation Server is that customers want more guidance on daily operations, and specifically guidance about how to put together their own operations plan. The Visual Studio Team System Rangers and our own UE team worked together to understand this need and produce a technical article specifically designed to address this need.  We're proud to announce the public release of this technical article today.  Be sure to check out Operations Guidance for Team Foundation Server and let us know what you think!  A quick summary:

You can manage your deployment of Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server more effectively if you create your own operations plan. As you create your plan, you should understand key elements of the architecture of Team Foundation Server and how your deployment topology affects operations. This white paper explains those elements in detail, so that you can avoid common problems with your deployment.

Applies to:

   Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server, including:

   - Team Explorer

   - Team Foundation Build

   - Team Foundation Version Control

We'd like to know if you'd like to see more of this kind of documentation in the future.  All feedback is welcome!

-=Susan

Announcing Team Foundation Power Tools (September 2007)

We are pleased to announce the September 2007 release of Team Foundation Power Tools. This release provides two major new features:

·         Best Practices Analyzer Tool for Team Foundation Server

This tool helps you more effectively discover and resolve issues that can occur in the typical course of installing, updating, and administrating deployments of Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server.

·         Work Item Templates

With this feature, users of Team Explorer can create, apply, capture, and set default templates for work items. This feature adds menu items to the Work Item Templates option on the Team menu.

You can install Team Foundation Power Tools on client computers that are running Team Explorer. These tools provide supplemental functionality for use with Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server.

You can locate the September 2007 release of Team Foundation Power Tools in the Visual Studio Developer Center on the Microsoft Web site, and you can look for help on these tools in the MSDN Forums.

Best Practices Analyzer Tool for Team Foundation Server

Within minutes of installing this tool, you can view a complete configuration inventory of your deployment of Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server. You can also review other reports that summarize any critical issues in the deployment. Several reports provide different ways of parsing the analysis, which you can use to zero in on the information that is most useful.

The Best Practices Analyzer tool for Team Foundation Server helps you perform these tasks:

·         Verify whether prerequisite software and system requirements are met before you install Team Foundation Server components.

·         Verify whether the deployment of Team Foundation Server is configured according to recommended practices and system requirements.

·         Review the full configuration of a Team Foundation Server deployment in one easily viewed, drill-down tree report.

·         Identify and help resolve problem areas that might interfere with typical functions or cause poor performance in a deployment of Team Foundation Server.

To help you accomplish these tasks, the Best Practices Analyzer tool for Team Foundation Server performs these main functions:

·         Scans the configuration of servers and client computers that are running components of Team Foundation Server or on which you intend to install components of Team Foundation Server.

The health scan checks the state of a deployment of Team Foundation Server that is already operational. The preinstall scan checks the state of a client computer or server before you install one or more components of Team Foundation Server.

·         Gathers information about the environment and deployment configuration of Team Foundation Server.

·         Analyzes the collected information and detects where the configuration does not meet requirements.

·         Reports all the information collected and analyzed in easily viewed formats.

·         Provides links to topics that help you resolve all reported issues.

About Information Gathered

When you scan a deployment, the Best Practices Analyzer tool for Team Foundation Server collects information from a variety of sources. The tool collects information from the Microsoft Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) class, system settings, registry entries, the Internet Information Services (IIS) metabase, SQL Server databases, and elsewhere. You can best view this information by opening the tree report and navigating through the various levels of detail.

Both the health scan and the preinstall scan report collected information.

About Rule Checking and Issue Resolution

The Best Practices Analyzer tool for Team Foundation Server collects and analyzes information according to a set of rules that are contained within XML files. This information includes, but is not limited to, the following data:

·         Are application pools configured correctly?

·         Are account passwords expired or about to expire?

·         Can a connection to the database be established?

·         Are SQL Server services installed, running, and set for automatic startup?

·         Are Web services for Team Foundation Server running, correctly configured, and set for automatic startup?

·         Has SharePoint Products and Technologies been provisioned?

·         Are there any version conflicts between components or prerequisites for Team Foundation Server?

The tool reports and highlights errors, warnings, and non-default configuration conditions with a corresponding icon. In addition, each issue reported contains a link to more information about the test or rule that was run and how to resolve the issue that was detected.  

For More Information

For more information, see the Help file for the Best Practices Analyzer Tool for Team Foundation Server. This file, TfsBPA.chm, is installed when you install the September 2007 release of Team Foundation Power Tools.

Work Item Templates

By creating work item templates, you can reduce the number of steps that are required to create or update work items. When you use a template to create a work item, some of the fields will already contain default values. For example, you can create a task template that will set the area path, iteration path, and discipline whenever you use the template to create or modify a task.

If you open the Team menu and point to the Work Item Templates option, you can perform the following tasks:

·         Show the Work Item Tracking Template window.

·         Set the default path of the template store.

·         Create a work item from the default template.

·         Create a work item from a template that you specify.

·         Capture the fields that are defined in a work item to form the basis of a template.

·         Apply a default template to an open work item.

·         Apply a template that you specify to an open work item.

·         Simultaneously apply a template to multiple work items.

In the Work Item Tracking Template window, you can perform the following tasks:

·         Create or modify a work item template.

·         Apply a template to an open work item.

·         Simultaneously apply a template to multiple work items.

·         Create a folder for storing templates.

For More Information

For more information about how to use this feature, see the guide for the September 2007 release of Team Foundation Power Tools. This guide is installed when you install the most recent version of these tools.

--Kathryn

Community Health for Visual Studio Team System– Part 1

In the first in a series of blog posts, I begin to look at the various community initiatives for Visual Studio Team System, the metrics that give an understanding of "community health", and our plans for the next year in these areas.

To read more, see http://blogs.msdn.com/vstsue/pages/community-health-for-visual-studio-team-system-part-1-details.aspx.

 -Steven

Content Lead, Team Edition for Database Professionals and member of the Visual Studio Team System Community Council

Now available: Power Tools for Team Edition for Database Professionals with Service Release 1

You can now download the first release of power tools for Team Edition for Database Professionals.

By installing the power tools, you gain the ability to perform the following tasks:

·         Use database refactoring to update files automatically when you want to:

o   Move a database object to a different schema

o   Disambiguate references to database objects by fully qualifying their names

o   Expand wildcard references to explicitly list columns

o   Generate scripts from your refactoring log that will help preserve the intent of your refactoring operations. For example, you can create a script that will rename a column, instead of dropping the column with the old name and creating an empty column with the new name.

·         Compare schemas and data at a command prompt

·         Specify regular expressions and data bound columns more easily

·         Automatically fill a table with reference data by using a new sequential data bound generator (see below)

·         Organize your database project by schema or by database object type without using the database project wizard

·         View the objects that reference or are referenced by a database object

·         Identify common problems in Transact-SQL (T-SQL) code by performing static code analysis

·         Develop Visual Studio add-ins that integrate with Schema View

You can find more information and a link to download the English version of the release at the Download Center on the Microsoft Web site. Before you install the power tools, you must first install Service Release 1 for Team Edition for Database Professionals.

To immediately download the update, you can click this link to the Microsoft Web site.

Sequential Data Bound Generator

In a previous post, I talked about the ways in which you can manage reference data in your test environment. One of the approaches that I mentioned was to use a new data generator called the sequential data bound generator. This generator returns the records in the order that you specify in the query and, therefore, keeps the data in each row together.

You can easily use this generator if you already know how to create data generation plans and use data generators. For an overview of how to generate te data in Team Edition for Database Professionals, see LINK.In the Column Details window, click Sequential Data Bound Generator in the Generator field. When a Browse button (‘…’) appears in the right-most cell of that row in the grid, you click that button to start the Data Generator Wizard. In that wizard, you specify the database connection that corresponds to the data source from which you want to retrieve the reference data. Then you type the T-SQL statement that returns the reference data. For example, you would type SELECT * FROM [Production].[UnitMeasure] to generate reference data for the Production.UnitMeasure table in the AdventureWorks sample database.

Unfortunately, you cannot use the same connection string for different columns in the same table. You must specify the connection again and retype (or copy and paste) the SELECT statement for each column in your reference table.

Finally, you should update the Rows to Insert field to match the number of rows that your SELECT statement returns. If you specify more rows to insert than what the SELECT statement returns, the sequence of generated data will repeat. For example, your SELECT statement might return three rows, “Red”, “Green”, and “Blue”. If you specify five rows to insert, your reference data would consist of “Red”, “Green”, “Blue”, “Red”, “Green”.

In my next post, I will take a closer look at some of the other power tools that this release includes.

-Steven

New Content Available on Creating Custom Reports

If you tried to create custom reports, you may have found that you needed more help than what was available. Today, we published new content on MSDN online to help you get started. Check it out, give it a try, and leave feedback so that we can continue to improve this content.

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb649552(VS.80).aspx

Allen