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.
Related
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.
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.
I was wondering if EF4 support cross-databse relationships? For instance:
db1
Author
Id
Name
db2
Posts
Id
Content
db1.Author.Id
What ideally I need to do to get this relation in my ef4 model?
Do you guys have any idea?
Thanks
I've found this entry in Microsoft Connect that answers the question about the support given at this moment by EF (actually it is not supported yet).
Also found a thread in Social MSDN about this concern.
Other links on Stack Overflow:
ADO.Net Entity Framework across multiple databases
Entity framework 4 and multiple database
In summary, the only given alternatives are:
Using views in EF
Use NHibernate instead
If your database supports Synonyms, you can trick EF to span multiple databases. I wrote up how to do it here.
Basically you end up with an edmx file per database, and a script which merges them into a single edmx file. Synonyms are used to reference one database from another by using the actual table name, so EF doesn't throw a fit when you try to access database2.table from database1. You still have to setup links between the two databases manually in the EF model, but once setup they'll stay even if you re-run the merge script.
Scripts to setup Synonyms and to merge the edmx files are posted in the link
I recently began a project that uses entity framework with two databases, one Oracle and one SQL Server. I could not find any information regarding cross-database or multiple database support in the entity framework.
Most posts from the MS Entity framework team are a couple of years old and indicate that including two databases in a single model is not a feature that will be included soon. I would be interested in having a concrete answer on whether it was included in 2010 myself although I suspect the answer is no.
Currently out project gets around this limitation by having a separate entity model for each database. This has solved the problem for the majority of the scenarios we've encountered thus far in the project.
In cases where we've needed to query the data from the two databases at the same time, we simply created a view in one or the other databases. Since we're using Oracle and SQL Server, this view would utilize either a Linked Server (SQL) or a DBLink (Oracle).
The disadvantage of views in the entity framework is we've had to spent more time than I expected getting the primary keys working.
Hope this helps.
I have the need for sql based library that will allow me to create products, order items, orders, etc to support e-commerce on a .net mvc site. Does anybody have a suggestion as to where I can purchase a library like this or should I write it myself?
Thanks,
Chris
This might help start you off if you're stuck with getting started with your database schema, it's a library of free database models:
Library of Free Data Models from DatabaseAnswers.org
There's even a sample Orders and Shipping model you could start off with.
I'd then suggest starting off with tool such as SubSonic or Linq to SQL to build your data access widgets:
SubSonic Project
I don't understand why you need a library for this. Since you are not using an open source shopping cart there must be some need for a custom solution. Therefore you should design the tables yourself based on the needs. You can then create Stored Procedures that you call from within your .net code to update the data within the tables. This is pretty trivial and I doubt you need a specific library to accomplish this.
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.