I am looking for a fancy way the print individual work items in TFS.
OK ... maybe not the work item directly but I need to produce printable forms based on data on a work item. And by fancy I mean: header, footer, formatting, tables maybe ... stuff like that.
No, I am not trying to print a list of work items, read carefully, I need an output based on a single work item.
For those who are wondering "Why on earth do you need that?" I should say:
We are keeping everything on TFS around here. (For now only software development stuff, but I am thinking bigger...) Sometimes somethings need to be on hard copy, to be signed for instance, and that is why I need printable forms.
I came up with a solution a little interesting from my point of view.
I used the "mail merge" function of MS Word to print work items. I prepared an SQL query that reads whatever fields are needed from TFS database and set the query as a datasource for mail marge.
Now I can design a word document of any kind and use TFS fields in the document. I just select the appropriate record by work item number and voila!! my printable work item is ready.
It is a little slow when selecting a work item if you use a query that returns all work items, but who is perfect? Right ?
Though I agree that Reporting Services is probably the best way to accomplish this, you could alternatively write a web application that queries TFS and formats the data into a nice, printable HTML page. If you really wanted to, you could even look at some of the PDF libraries that are out there and just form-fill a PDF.
Here is an other free tool which can print tfs workitems:
http://blog.bbv.ch/2013/10/31/tfs-print/
You can use the Reporting services to create nice reports.
Access to the reporting services.
http://[tfsservername]/reports
Use the report designer with the standard cube's.
Here a link to get you started
ALM Rangers recently posted a tool on CodePlex which is actually an add-in for MS Word. What it does is connect to a query on TFS and create a word documents based on a print template.
http://vsarword4tfs.codeplex.com/
Related
I am new to TFS and know the basic concepts. In my case we have customized TFS a lot which contains around 17 collections, custom fields in work items etc.
I have some queries for which I require some answers. The questions might be generic, but any help or suggestions on the below queries would be great.
Following are my queries:
1.) Show Work Item ID in a specific format. Can it be done
2.) Auto Fill custom fields for a work item based on a category / linked bugs (analogous to Relative Path column type)
3.) While raising a WI through Visual Studio development tool, the datepicker only takes date value and not time. The same work items when raised through web portal the datepicker gives time value as well.
4.) Auto Fill the efforts spent in Child Work items (summation of all child link items in the parent)
5.) Reminders to be sent if iteration / scrum set date crossed. Also check for Work Items as well, if set date is crossed.
6.) Create Queries which can query across all collections / verticals. Currently queries can be made only against each entire collection, but not across all collections. Do we have any mechanism to query against multiple collections?
7.) Email alerts customizations in TFS.
8.) Can the collections be merged into 1 default collection.
I have tried to find few answers from my end as well, and would like to know, if it is correct.
1.) Work Item ID cannot be shown in a specific format as it is system generated
2.) For Auto Filling of Work Item fields, it cannot be done. Manual approach is the only way (unless there is a way to pre-populate fields
3.) One can only query for all projects in a single collection. But it is not possible to query against multiple collections and get the results.
So require assistance on the above queries and also validate the answers I have got for few of my questions.
Any help or suggestions or relevant links would be great.
Thanks In Advance!!!..
Please kindly check below inputs
You are right. This is by designed. You can not change to use other
format of work item.
Yes. This could not be done at present. It's still a user voice, but
on the Roadmap. Support for calculated fields and roll-ups.
Sorry, not get your point.You could use the DateTimeControl type to give users a calendar picker to select a date for a DateTime field. By using this control, you can quickly select a date and time for the field. For details.
You could do this from a sprint backlog or task board. Details
please take a look at our official tutorial here: Rollup of work
and other fields
We do not have this kind of build-in time reminder for work items.
However, as a workaround, There is a dashboard widget that uses #me
in its query.
You can also cobble something together using the REST API and a
scheduled build. Calling a work item query and sending email is
pretty easy from PowerShell.
No, they are using different database. You are only able to query
across team projects int the same project collection.
It's able to do this but with a little bit complicated. For detail
info, please take a look at this link: Customize TFS 2015 alert
email
There is no default way to do this. I do not think there is a
possibility of merging two TFS collections other than creating a new
collection, creating the team projects and use a tool such as TFS
integration tools to move the team projects from the source
collections.
As you can see, history will be rewritten with new dates, changeset
and work items ids etc, if you are trying to merge collections.
what are the steps involved in moving from TestTrack to JIRA?
I've done a few migrations from TestTrack to JIRA over the last 5 years. It's always more work than I expect (weeks not days). The migrations I did used a custom migration application that read the data from the TestTrack database (not the simplest of schemas) and then imported it into JIRA using a custom SOAP API. Nowadays I think I might go with a more focused approach and use a single customized script to create CSV suitable for the JIRA CSV importer. This will get you the issue fields, comments and attachments. Links are separate thing, but no issue history.
The JIRA CSV importer works, though the flattening of the data restricts what it can do significantly. The hardest thing is usually mapping of values from one system to another - are the userids really identical in both systems?
If you want to investigate doing the migration commercially, please contact info#customware.net (my employer)
is it possible to create new queries in TFS 2010 based on the result of another query?
For example, one (parent) query selects all work items located under a certain work item (lets say work item with ID=5). And now I want to create other queries, that select all bugs, all tasks etc. from the results of the first query?
There, I only have to change the ID of the "parent" work item once and not in all subsequent queries.
Is this possible in TFS 2010 in combination with VST 2010?
Thanks
Konrad
There is a basic support for what you 're after in the GUI editor for WIQL: try with query of type "Tree of Work Items" - which creates a multi-level structure. There is minimal support to what you can handle in this context, for example it's not possible to pick work items with different criterias from level to level.
On the other hand you can implement a custom tool using the TFS-API. There you should be able to tailor to your needs exhaustively. I can support in such endeavor in case you 're interested.
What you want to do seems to be more of a report than a plain query. I think you should have a look at implementing custom reports.
I am exploring feasibility of using TFS for software process on our next project. One need is to be able to create a requirements document from individual linked requirements within TFS. I've currently got mock-up projects in both Agile and CMMI with a set of requirements linked with parent child relationships. I can query these requirements in both Agile and CMMI but the result doesn't show the hierarchy. With CMMI I can run the report "Project Management::Requirements Progress" which shows requirement titles with indention based on hierarchy. It doesn't however show the detailed descriptions
What I'd like is to auto generate a Word document with hierarchical headings based on TFS requirement work items and their parent/child relationships.
Also to generate rich text and drawings from the TFS requirement Work Item descriptions. So a secondary question is how to change the description field in the Requirements Work Item to support rich text so that the reports can use it. If I try to edit the Task Work Item Description field it warns me that continuing to save may make file unloadable.
To support RichText in your work items you need to edit your work item definition by Work Item Editor wihch can be found in the TFS Power Tools thingy. You should add a new custom rich text field and use that field for your descriptions. (The downside is, Excel plug-in does not support editing richtext fields.They are read-only in Excel)
For printing work items, I had to improvise solution and worked pretty well for me. I used the "Mail Merge" functionality of MS Word and designed a word document. After that I prepared a SQL query that takes the needed field values from TFS Warehouse. Rest is done by MS Word. Mail Merge prepares a single document for each work item record. They are separate documents but it does the trick I suppose.
For creating a hierarchy I think you need to go a little deeper. Since TFS supports parent/child relationships but does not follow any particular sort order, I suppose another custom field is needed. You can either use the field to give hierarchy tokens manually (1.1, 1.2, etc.) or you can develop a little custom command line utility to traverse the work item tree and autoset values for the mentioned custom field.
Hallo experts,
i'm newbie to TFS, but responsible for SW Test in my group. I'm trying to create a couple of test cases thru MS Visual Studio. I don't know how to change the Test Case IDs, which seem to be automatically assigned by the system. However we want to adapt the IDs to the conventions in our SW specifications. Thanks in advance.
JohnMunich
If what you're looking for is a custom Test Case ID, you'll probably want to modify your work item template for the test cases with a new, custom field.
You can do this by exporting the appropriate work item type using the TFS Power Tools, adding the field and re-importing.
If you want the field to show up in the warehouse, be sure to make it reportable.
Note: The direct link is for the TFS 2010 power tools. This page also contains a link to the TFS 2008 Power Tools.
I don't believe there's any way to do this within TFS itself. These numbers are assigned and internally they are used as primary keys for the data.
You potentially could change the number that will be assigned. I think this might be of help.
The problem is that this will change the next User Story ID that you generate, too.