My work group recently upgraded from TFS 2013 to TFS 2015; and migrated the database to the new environment. We use the TFS kanban for tracking our work, and for allowing customers to see all the possible items in the input queue to vote on which item is worked on next. We had built a custom SSRS report to get this data out of the TFS database for review from our customers... But now that we've upgraded TFS, a table that was integral to this report is now missing? The table which is now missing is dbo.WorkItemsAre.
Is anyone familiar with where/how the TFS kanban items will be tracked after migrating to 2015? It seems like the documentation on the TFS database has always been lacking when I try finding anything on MSDN or a microsoft site.
Thank you!!
For customized reports you should use the warehouse database (Tfs_Warehouse). You can find the documentation about work item tables here.
Or you can use the cube. The documentation about the work item perspective is here.
For data not available in either the warehouse or the cube you can use the RestAPI or the Client API.
The operational databases are not supported by Microsoft. You may also be asked to remove anything you have built against the operational store for any support to be given.
Related
I wanted to use some queries using the TFS SDK in .net,
It would make things easier if I had access to the database schema.
I found this which says there is no such documentation but it is from 2007. Is there any sort of documentation for TFS 2013 now or is there still none?
TFS database schema is not documented for the reason that you are not supposed to use it directly. The reason being that database schema changes between versions of TFS and whatsoever you would have created might/would stop working after an upgrade or update. Please use TFS API instead.
Having said that, there are some blogs and guides that use database directly. Have a look at Grant Holiday's blog who has posted about using some queries to get some statistics e.g.
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/granth/archive/2009/10/23/tfs2010-sql-queries-for-tfs-statistics.aspx
Also, ALM Rangers reporting guide contains an appendix about Work Item Store Database schema
https://vsarreportguide.codeplex.com/downloads/get/764892
DISCLAIMER: As I said, the data model can and will change over time so be mindful of that.
Please check Work item field and database schema reference. It includes two important components
Relational warehouse database
Analysis Services cube
To understand warehouse schema, you'd better have a basic understanding of star schema, fact and dimensions. There are also several view to help you not touch table directly. TFS data warehouse is very powerful, from which you can generate all kinds of report including project progress, bug trend, test report, etc.
We are trying to ensure that all users follow the rules of ALM when using Team Foundation Server. For example, to ensure that work items and their children have consistent states. Specifically, when transitioning a User Story to the "Closed" state, this should only be allowed if all of the children tasks are closed. Is there any way to implement this behavior with TFS?
You haven't specified which TFS and VS you are using so I am going to assume 2013, although explanations are the same for 2012.
I don't think you can achieve your goal by just configuration, you may need to write some code by using one of the extensibility hooks provided by TFS.
A good place to start is to see if you can leverage the TFS Power Tools - a collection of tools (policies, templates etc.) provided by the TFS team out of band with the product itself.
I'm looking for a tool to track questions and answers between the development team. After then I want to compare the employees based on their activities via some reports. Currently we're using MSF for CMMI 4.2.
Is there any process template to support this situation? For example having work item types like Question, Answer, Article.
Is using TFS a proper tool for this purpose?
Or maybe there's some better tools available which I'm not aware about.
Is there something like StackOverflow which I can use locally in the company?
You can upgrade tfs to tfs 2013 which supports team rooms where your team members can chat which also can be used as q&a tool. You can try this now in tfs service.
http://tfs.visualstudio.com/en-us/learn/collaborate-in-a-team-room.aspx
You can also set up your own company wiki website where your team members can update q&a.
What is the best ASP.NET WIKI out there?
Or set up your own in house stackoverflow
https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2267/stack-overflow-clones
It sounds like you want a discussion forum. If you are using SharePoint (e.g. for the TFS Project Portal) you can create a discussion forum in SharePoint.
In TFS Work Items there is also the ability to track a discrete list of comments/discussion under the History tab.
you can also integrate them with Microsoft Project Server Or Microsoft Dynamics CRM.
there are many tools there , waiting for you , to solve your other problem.
http://www.quantumwhisper.com/dynamics-crm-microsoft-tfs-integration/
crm has many feature for that
http://intovsts.net/2012/12/28/integration-of-dynamics-crm-2011-solutions-with-tfs/
in the project server also exist many lists like issue tracker, or risk for send messages interactive between your team and others.
Consider a new deployment of Team Foundation Server 2010, with the first use cases being Version Control.
The teams using TFS for Version Control are:
application development - web applications, SharePoint, db scripts, etc. primarily through Visual Studio
integration - text files (XML and JavaScript) for an integration engine.
data warehouse - VS database projects, SSIS packages
Each team typically doesn't have projects relating to each other, and work independently. All projects are internal, and each team has a different set of customers.
The first suggestion is to have a Collection layout as such:
* Applications
* Sharepoint
* Integration
* DataWarehouse
How would you structure a TFS 2010 given these conditions?
Are there any practices or suggestions that would you recommend for these teams in terms of collection structure?
(source: msdn.com)
I'll answer my own question here with how I laid it out in this environment with many distinct teams.
For any other developers taking on the TFS admin role, I'd again throw out the suggestion to divide your TFS Collections where the projects won't have any cross-over between teams. This could be however you define it - customers, separate teams.
This helps to allow teams to see & contribute to projects that they're concerned with.
Create new or leverage existing AD security groups for the purpose of granting read/write to each appropriate Group in the Collection. Allow/deny permissions to each Group for the Collections as they're needed.
Steve Lange has a very good posting about this topic ("Thoughts on TFS Project Collections"), click here
Can collections have collections? If so, I'd suggest a team bases collection. Then each team can have their own child structure as they see fit. It also gives you a nice seperation between teams, giving you flexability in security, stability, etc.
We would like to give our customers access to report bugs and to look at existing bugs and work items, through Team Foundation Server.
For that, we will need a web frontend, which is customer-friendly. It should be easy to use and with a nice UI. I am aware of Web Access, but think it is too developer-oriented for our customers to use.
Is there any good open source or commercial products out there for doing this? It is important that we will be able to customize the products for our needs.
There is WIWA, but it's quite similar to the regular web access tool. It exists more as a licensing aid (helping TFS admins ensure they don't overstep the CAL requirements) than as a fresh new UI aimed at non-developers.
Note: get it from the latest download package for TSWA SP1, not the CTP linked in the blog post
I don't know of any other solutions that are as customizable as you're hoping. I've seen (and contributed to) one-off solutions that were tailored for a specific work item type. At the broadest level, you could say that the bug pages # connect.microsoft.com and # Codeplex fall into that category as well. But none of them is publicly available, nor would they be helpful even if published.
You'll probably need to do a one-off of your own using the Work Item Tracking API. Luckily, this is far easier than writing a generalized workflow engine / forms designer that knows how to parse WIT XML.
A bit of a shameless plug as I'm the project owner: Spruce is an ASP.NET MVC2/jQuery driven front end for TFS 2010 aimed at replicating the user-friendly approach you find in products such as Fogbugz, Unfuddle and online sites such as Github, Bitbucket.
A few screenshots:
I'll be adding the list of features found on the blog at the start of the year.