Extending Team Foundation 2010 - tfs

We use TFS 2010 for source control, and have it configured so that team collections can have their own Sharepoint portal.
This works fine and we can create tasks/bugs etc using this.
However we want to extend this into some custom apps that log into our own databases, and TFS.
So bugs can be raised by people outside the normal realm of operation.
My question is, does anyone have or know of some resources that really get under the skin of TFS, all the APi tips and tricks. As well as the more advanced features.
I am happy to buy the books on this, just unsure which books are the right books to buy.
Thanks in advance.

I found this set of blog posts by Shai Raiten to be helpful
http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/blogs/shair/archive/tags/TFS+API/default.aspx

How about Extending Team Foundation ?

Related

TFS 2015 Kanban - Database tables? Where did dbo.workitemsare go?

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.

Team developing Dynamics CRM 4.0 Customisations

I'm new to CRM and yes, 4.0 is where I'm starting.
I am trying to find out if there is any way to have track and manage changes to CRM Customisations in TFS.
As things stand now I have 3 developers and if 2 devs work on different customisations in the dev crm, when one is ready to be imported into the test environment there is no easy way to separate the changes by different developers.
I can't be the first person to have thought about this but I'm not getting any answers when I google it... I may be wording my question incorrectly but I'm hoping the StackOverflow members can shed some light on this for me.
This may be of help to you regarding source control CRM artefacts:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj602974.aspx

Using TFS as a Q/A tool

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.

Orchard for custom websites

I've just installed Orchard and created a sample site. I want to evaluate this CMS to see what it's capabilities are if I could choose it for my CMS of choice for ASP.NET MVC based sites. Has anyone used it to run a custom, highly modified website? Unfortunately no sample sites are provided at Orchard site to see it in action.
I know what my requirements will be and those are quite demanding. I have my own little CMS in ASP.NET MVC 2 which I tailor to my needs anytime I want but it lacks a lot of functionality that you get when you have a bigger team of developers at your disposal like the Orchard has.
The best way to reply to this question is if you can provide some insights into customization and if you can provide a link to a working site.
There are a couple sites out there.. Here are three I have worked on...
These two were for a University, they have a contact us page, Payment system, and also hooks in to multiple databases with a large set of business logic for students and payments. The Registration system also has an updated menu template to deal with drop downs.
http://housing.bathspa.ac.uk/ (v0.5)
http://registration.bathspa.ac.uk/ (v0.5)
My blog jsut has a modified theme which was enough to get me up an running.
http://www.themayneissue.com/ (v0.5)
There are a few open source modules I work on as well..
http://orchardopenauth.codeplex.com/
http://orchardblogml.codeplex.com/
These also allow for customization of the Orchard system
There are two community sites using Orchard, Orchard Gallery and NuGet gallery.
For now me with my team is being writing an appication for nearly two months using Orchard and the only thing I can say is that it is awesome!
Yes, Orchard is very simple for now, but it is so powerfull in the same time. I just love their dynamic shapes and content types. Use it and you'll love it!
And as a bonus:
Just get code from repo and look through it, it shines like a diamond (the only problem is lack of comments). I am sure every MVC developer will find a lot of stuff to learn from it.
There is another web site developed using orchard.

Is there a customer-friendly web frontend for Team Foundation Server?

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.

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