How to Add a Variable for Solution Selection - tfs

I created a SourcePath variable to my VSTS variable. It is not letting me put that into the Workspace Mapping.
As a stopgap before moving to Azure DevOps, I am wanting to make the build work on any given TFVC branch. There is virtual no documentation on the on-prem VSTS implementation that we have.

In every version of on-prem TFS (up through TFS 2018) that I've worked with, you can't; you have to use explicit workspace mappings without variables in them.
It looks like it was changed in Azure DevOps at some point to work, but it doesn't show up on the feature timeline, so I couldn't say what version of on-prem TFS/Azure DevOps Server it's present in.

Related

Maintaining Two Different Source Control Servers

We have been hired by a client who would like us to check in code to their Azure Devops Team Foundation Version Control server.
We have our own small team of developers that will work on this project and commit changes to our own TFVC server first. Once all check-ins are approved, we would then like to commit all of our changes to our client's TFVC server. We have been given a single login to their TFS system, so we would like to check in our code into their system using the single login that was provided to us. The client does not need to know the history of all of our own developer's work, we would like them to see our check in as a single author. We don't want to migrate, as this will be a common task for us.
What's the most straightforward way we could do this?
It is not possible to sync code on 2 different TFS server. Since you work in one workspace (command line and GUI) at a time. And a workspace cannot span servers.
The only workaround here is manually copy/past your code directly through windows file system. Finally check in code to your client's TFVC server.
The better solution is to convince your clients to use Git repositories instead of TFVC. There is a lot to win here! And you could migrate your sources with git-tfs with all history.

Move code from TFVC on TFS 2010 to TFVC on Azure DevOps Server

I have some projects on TFVC source control on TFS 2010. I want just to migrate the source code from TFS 2010 to TFVC on Azure DevOps Server.
I don't want to process an upgrade of the entire collection to a newest version. I Just want to transfer my code with history.
I tried Git-TFS. I cloned my repository on TFS 2010, but I don't know how I can update the remote URL for TFVC repos and push on Azure DevOps Server.
Any ideas how I can do it? Or other tools that I can use?.
In the case I decide to migrate without history how can I do it?
Thanks.
git-tfs is a two-way bridge between TFS (Team Foundation Server) and git, similar to git-svn. It fetches TFS commits into a git repository, and lets you push your updates back to TFS.
If you want to move code from TFVC on TFS2010 to TFVC on Azure DevOps 2019 and keep history.
You have to do the upgrade process of entire project collection.
In the case I decide to migrate without history how can I do it
You could just create corresponding new team projects and workspaces. Pull down your source code from your TFS2010 workspaces/projects. Copy and paste source code files/folders in new workspace. Then check in them back to Azure DevOps Server 2019.
We advise you keep preview TFVC repository of 2010 online but read-only to view history.
Same with Azure DevOps Service, hope this helps.
Disclaimer: I'm the last maintainer of the git-tfs tool (even if I no more work on it)
Git-tfs could be used to migrate from TFVC to git (with history and branches if your history is not too complex).
But in no way it could be used to push this history to another empty TFVC project.
So don't expect something from here.
Fun fact (not so fun for you) :
To prevent regression developing git-tfs, I created a TFVC project on Codeplex used to run smoke tests in a Continuous Integration job.
When Microsoft decided to close Codeplex, I contacted a guy working in the source control team inside Microsoft to help me migrate from Codeplex to Azure Devops (at the time called VSTS) which is the problem you try to solve.
I don't know if they put a lot of effort into this but no one was able give me a solution. The only thing they think about was to use git-tfs, that I confirm you is not able to do it!
That could give you an idea of the problem you're trying to solve...
Ps: that also show that TFVC is not an enough flexible source control and their is a much higher added value to migrate to git (like nearly everyone is doing it...)

Merge from VisualStudio Online to local TFS and back?

Have an in house TFS server that employees use (using TFVC) and third-party contractors that are using VisualStudio Team Services (aka Visual Studio Online or VSO) (also using TFVC). Need to keep the two synced; projects in VSO get merges from check-ins from TFS and TFS get merges from VSO. The TFS instance has many dozen projects and the VSO instance has two or three of those in TFS.
Any suggestions appreciated.
While there are a few tools that can "sync" between different TFVC instances, it's very hard to keep the flow going and you often run into merge conflicts and other problems. The TFS Integration tools were an official solution from Microsoft, but those have been deprecated.
Given that you're on TFS 2017 and VSTS, I'd highly recommend switching to Git repositories. Git was made to handle scenarios like these, to have multiple hosts that need to share the history and from which you need to be able to sync sources across.
Both TFS 2017 and VSTS can host the repository for you and it's relatively easy to setup CI builds that sync the sources between branches on both instances to trigger pull requests.

Configure a backup schedule for Git version control with VSTS

I found articles on GIT back up and restore but I did not find any on Microsoft TFS Scheduled backup for GIT version control.
This document describes on how TFS's traditional versioning can be scheduled for automatic back up. Configure a backup schedule and plan for Team Foundation Server
However, I did not find any link where I can read that "GIT repository is also included in schedule". I am not a TFS expert and I do not have access to TFS server to verify in person. So any help is appreciated.
The tutorial you are refer which is Scheduled Backups tool. It' a build-in tool on the Scheduled Backups page in the TFS Administration console.
It' the whole database back up not only referring to source control, but also work items, pull requests, builds, test plans or anything else that the service offers.
As a limitation, you need both an administrator for TFS and a member of the SQL Server System Administrators group.
And no need to to verify in person, it's under SQL server, when you want to use the backup, just restore the database.
If you are actually using the online VSTS . For now there is no build-in tool and got a uservoice:
Provide a backup service for Visual Studio Team Services
https://visualstudio.uservoice.com/forums/330519-visual-studio-team-services/suggestions/5339461-provide-a-backup-service-for-visual-studio-team-se
However if you just want a git repository(source code) back up, you could use some 3rd-party tool to achieve this:
We use the VSO Rest API to query our VSO account and get all the data
we need. Since in VSO you can only have one Team Project Collection,
we retrieve all the team projects of the default collection. Each of
these team projects can have multiple repositories that need to be
backed up. A folder is created for each team project and saved to a
location on disk that can be configured in the app.config. When the
team project folder is created, the task loops over each repository in
the team project and creates folders for each repository.
Source Link
You can also fork it on GitHub here. Certainly, you should also be able to use this for on-premise TFS also use the API, just need to change some part.
TFS is implemented the way to keep Git repositories in the SQL Server database, too. Thus, when you follow the instructions from the article you reference, the source code will also be included in the backup, no difference whether it is TFVC or Git.

TFS Sparse checkout local workspace

Is there a way to "sparsely checkout" a local workspace in TFS 2012? We currently use SVN and are investigating TFS 2012. Specifically, I don't want my entire collection to be downloaded to a developer machine. We branch to provide isolation among teams and products. I'm hoping that we can selectively choose which items in the branch are downloaded locally.
You can map various parts of your source tree using different workspaces to achieve some of the effect that you're looking for. We use this to separate components in our build system. Workspaces are configured by client machine/by user.

Resources