When we create a project in TFS, we always follow these steps:
1) Create new team project
2) Create workspace, assocate to source control folder and local folder
3) Create three folders under team project (Main, Dev, Release)
4) Check in source to Main
5) Convert Main to branch
6) Create Dev/Dev and Release/Release branches from Main branch
These 6 steps are pretty much stock for every project we build, but it is possible for developers to get it wrong or stray from this design. Is there something available for TFS that we can use to automate this process?
You can create a new team project with the "tfpt createteamproject" (from the power tools). You can also execute all your tasks from the command line to (use the tf and the tfpt commands).
In your case, creating a batch file that executes all these commands could be your solution
Related
I have Microsoft TFS build process to deploy web project to azure web role, this occurs automated way every day. I have followed Azure article https://azure.microsoft.com/en-in/documentation/articles/cloud-services-dotnet-continuous-delivery/
I have following MSBuild arguments in my build process, as above article suggested
/t:Publish /p:PublishDir=C:\MSCD\
When i add database project to my project solution, build is keep failing. Getting error message
The "SqlPublishTask" task was not given a value for the required
parameter "SqlPublishProfilePath"
When i publish my web project, i don't want database project to be published. How to drop DACPAC file to drop folder ? so i can use powershell to update my database in azure.
I am using TFS 2012 On-Premise. Could someone give suggestion on how to solve this problem?
You need to create Master-child build definitions and in master build definition configure solution with build and deploy disabled in configuration manager .and in child build configure database project alone .
Create Master and child build definition such that they share common drop .
#Siva palla's answer solved this exact same issue for me. Here are the complete set of changes we made to get this working.
Changes in Visual Studio
Originally I was using a single configuration called 'Deployment' that was set to deploy both our WinForms project and our SQL project (VisionShellWin is the WinForms project, the two Vision.SQLMigration projects are the SSDT projects) so everything below is based on changes to Deployment. For most people you'll have Release instead of Deployment, all of the below should still work fine, just substitute in Release for Deployment:
To separate that single configuration in two I created a new configuration:
I set that new deployment to copy its settings from the old Deployment configuration and not to create new configurations for each of the projects (the existing project level Deployment ones are fine):
In that new deployment I then unticked the boxes to Build and Deploy the database projects:
I then did the exact same thing again to create a Database specific deployment:
And in that one I unticked everything except the database files:
That's everything needed in Visual Studio, so I committed all of that and synced it back to DevOps.
Changes in Azure DevOps
In DevOps I cloned my existing Visual Studio Build stage (called 'Build Winforms solution') and renamed the clone to Build Databases:
I added two new build variables in the Variables tab, named ClickOnceBuildStageConfiguration and DatabasesBuildStageConfiguration with their values set to the names of the new configurations we just created in VS:
And then I changed the WinForms build stage to use the new ClickOnceBuildStageConfiguration variable - note that we still have the /T:"VisionShellWin" /target:Publish MSBuild Arguments needed for ClickOnce set:
And the new Build Databases stage to use the databases variable - note that we don't have any MSBuild Arguments:
Finally, in addition to the copy stage I already had for copying the ClickOnce application files into the drop artifact:
I also added a Copy Files stage (called 'Copy Dacpacs') to copy the DacPac into the drop too:
Once you've done all of that, you should end up with a build that works and an artifact that contains both the ClickOnce files and the DacPacs
My current TFS build process just build my website project and output all the files, such as assemblies, web.config, etc.
From here, I learned how to create a web deploy package with MSBuild in command line.
But I want to know how to insert this package step into my current TFS build process.
Thanks for any insight.
Create your release package by creating a publish profile through Visual Studio. For this example mine is called Release. this will create you a Release.pubxml file in a folder called Publish Profiles, under your project, check this into source control.
Then in your build definition, under the process tab.
Expand the 02. Build > 5 Advanced or similar depending on the version of TFS you are using, add the following to the MSBuild argument text box
/p:DeployOnBuild=true;PublishProfile=Release
ensure the PublishProfile has the same name as the one you created earlier (Release)
this will create your deployment package as part of the build
I have managed to chain two TFS builds together using Jason Stangroome's chaining build definition template. This gives me the capacity to execute one build definition after the next:
CertificateRepository-CI (Continuous Integration Build)
CertificateRepository-IntegrationTests
The latter will automatically be executed if the former is successful. I am stumped by the lack of Build Definition Templates that are able to download and extract the contents of the preceding build's drop folder and perform actions upon these artifacts, in this case running SpecFlow/NUnit integration tests.
In this case I am using:
Visual Studio Online
Git for the codebase being tested
TFVC for the ALM components (NUnit Adapter, Build Definition Templates)
Any help greatly appreciated.
If you are using TFS for source control: I don't have a template for this but you can follow below steps to achieve this.
In CI build set the Staging Location option to Copy buildoutput to following Source Control folder
Download the drop folder by mapping it in source settings option
in build definition
Under drop location folder in TFS, every CI build will create a new folder, you need to pass this folder name to the second build definition. Please check another post from Jason for passing parameters to second build
Execute the tests by invoking the commandline tools using Invoke
Process activity.
I've just setup a TFS (2012) server and now I'm trying to build the complete code (written in .NET 4.0 in VS 2010) via the TFS Build server. But in my solutions I have also a WCF RIA project which contains linked files because they are used somewhere else also and there is no possibility to add a reference to a general .NET binary in WCF/Silverlight.
Everything builds without any problem on my development machine but when I check it all in, create a standard build definition and run that build definition I get the following problem. The linked files have usings (UsingNamespace for example) to other projects that are also build by us and build before the WCF/Silverlight but the following error pops up while building through TFS Build server:
The type or namespace 'UsingNamespace' could not be found (are you
missing a using directive or an assembly reference?)'
Is there any solution for this problem that I looked over?
EDIT 1
Just tried to set the Copy to Output Directory propertie of the linked files to Copy Always but this still gives me the same error as I was expecting. The problem is that the linked file is placed somewhere that it can use the usings but the WCF RIA service cannot access/find that using.
EDIT 2
Just tried out my local test TFS where I can do what I want and there I made a build definition with just the solutions needed to make that the project with the linked files builds. This worked without any problem. Then I tried the same on our TFS server with a new build definition that has the same solutions as on my test TFS and here it did not work. The only difference that I know for sure is that my test TFS is TFS 2012 Update 1 and that my production TFS does not have the update 1 yet. I'll try to install it next week.
EDIT 3
I've just updated our production TFS to Update 1 but it is still not working with my temporary build definition which only contains the projects that are needed to build the silverlight application with the linked files. The 2 workspaces are the same on both server and the projects to build are also the same.
You need to specify the workspace information in the Build Definition for the build to use. The workspaces are what the build process copies from source control to the build server. If you don't have everything in the build server's workspace, it can't build properly.
The Source Control Folder in the workspace tab is the location of the files you need from TFS. The Build Agent Folder is a relative path from the build server's pre-defined base location. You'll usually use $(SourceDir)\Folder to specify the "Folder" that your build process needs.
This sounds like an $(Outdir) problem. A build definition in TFS automatically overrides the Bin folder. All Binaries are redirected to the bin folder upon compile. Sounds to me that you are using a mixture of project references and file references. The file references are probably what is causing your build failures.
Example if you compile in the same build the following solutions
Solution1.sln (TFS Build Pass)
project1.csproj
project2.csproj (references project 1)
Solution2.sln (TFS Build Failure)
project3.csproj (references binary output of project 1)
Expectations from TFS out of the box without customizing your workflow is that this simple build will fail. The reason is that in your development box all projects produce output to one destination while in a tfs build your projects will build to $(Outdir).
Some Things to try
Simple (best practice in my view)
Create 1 solution and use project references instead of file references.
Complex
Build using MSBuild project files
Modify your windows workflow to not override the $(Outdir)
Copy the binaries after a build is complete.
Best practice on Automating Builds
Build from command line
Build from cmd a NON vs2010 command line.
C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\msbuild.exe FullpathtoSolutionFile.sln
Cheers!
Apparently there was just missing the WCF RIA services V1.0 SP2 on the TFS server. If that was installed the problem was solved.
Consider the process when creating a new Team Project.
There's a convention to be followed: Team Projects need to have a directory structure like this:
MyTeamProject
-Dev
-Dev
-Main
-Docs
-Source
-Release
How can this directory structure/layout be automated, or otherwise taken out of the initial developer's hands? Are there any built in configuration spots in TFS 2010 to help achieve this?
There is a mix of training and convention involved here outside of TFS, but the idea is to set all the developers up for success.
You can use a batch file to create and checkin all these directories.
As stated in Team Foundation server project template you can create a batch file that first creates a team project and then add all the folders to version control