TFS serverside project alerts - tfs

It is our policy that the owner of a bug MUST be notified about bugs he owns, regardlessly of if he subscibed or forgot to subscribe. Is there a way project alerts can be configured on the server side or something without having to rely on the team member to subscribe manually? (TFS2010, TFS2008).

For TFS 2010 there is an easy solution for you now, via a plugin which can be downloaded from
CodePlex - Team Alert
It's a simple copy-paste solution which can take you 5 minutes to put in place using the configuration extract listed in the post below:
This post will show the exact configuration you need to perform what you want.
Notify AssignedTo user of new work (for a specific TFS project)

Not out of the box!
If you are using TFS2008 then you can use http://tfseventhandler.codeplex.com to host an "Event Handler" to do this for you.
You may need to create your own handler if there is not one that suits your needs perfectly, but I think the "AssignedTo" handler will do the job.

Related

Create TFS Tasks For New PBI's

I am working with a team and have set up Team Foundation Server 2013. We have a number of tasks that we want to include for each PBI. This includes items such as Code Review, Technical Documentation, etc.
I am looking for a way that these can be created automatically to save time during our Sprint Planning sessions. I am happy to write a UI or console application to do this, but wondered if there is a better way of doing this.
I know that automatically adding tasks might not be the best way to do things, but these tasks are needed due to requirements that have been placed on the team and will be kept to a minimum.
Create a server side event handler which listens for PBI creation and then creates the linked tasks.
Essentially you are creating a class that implements ISubscriber with a method called ProcessEvent which will do the creation and linking of the task Work Items. Drop the dll into:
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Team Foundation Server 14.0\Application Tier\Web Services\bin\Plugins.
Simple article to follow (2012 but concepts are the same in 2013)
Shai Raiten has a good (albeit a little old) blog on the TFS API to implement ProcessEvent.
TFS API: Create Link Between Work Item
You can create the server side events for this as rerwinRR suggestions, but you can also create a work item control that does this work to stay more in control when these tasks are created.
In Team Services (the cloud version of TFS) we already allow you to create extensions which even better support that model of adding actions.
Another option is to use Excel to quickly create these tasks.

TFS 2012 - How to Differentiate "Done" vs "Deployed"?

How does your team differentiate TFS work items that are "done" (development/testing complete) vs. "deployed" (live in Production)?
My first option would be to use a Tag to mark this. You can query and filter through them.
Another option would be to customize the work item types with an additional field, but this route is a bit more complex.
Change your Definition of Done to include: Deployed. Doing that you will have code working in production. If is needed more work, is not done.
But I guess you´re asking about how to have a new status. You can modify the workflow template to include this new state. In older versions of TFS you only can do that before to create the project, not in an started project. I don´t know in the latest version.

Can I make a code review in TFS without a request?

Can I perform a code review of my peer's check-in in TFS without an explicit request?
In other words, if I've got a notification about check-in, can I make a comment after having viewed a differences if I feel like they are needed?
I cannot see such an option inside web diff view linked from a notification email. And it looks like there's no mentions about such option and/or workflow in TFS documentation.
In Visual Studio 2012, go to Source Control Explorer and view the history for an item or folder. When you see the list of changesets, right click one of them and select the 'Request Review' option
Sounds like you are after lightweight code commenting. This is available now in TFService and will be part of TFS 2013 on-premise.
Take a look at Review Assistant - an alternative code review tool to built-in one.
It's well-integrated into VS, so you won't experience a major UX shift.
It supports adding "ad-hoc" comments while browsing the code of your peers. And it's not necessary to request a review in this case.

Receive email in TFS when I have a new task

Is there a way to receive an alert (email) in TFS whenever I have a new task?
In TFS 2008: right-click project, Project Alerts and check "When my workitems are changed by others"
Team Foundation Power Tools - Alerts Editor
"Alerts Editor
A GUI tool plug-in to Visual Studio that supports flexible subscription of alerts based on check-in, work item change, or build completion."
For TFS 2010 there is an easy solution for you now, via a plugin which can be downloaded from
CodePlex - Team Alert
It's a simple copy-paste solution which can take you 5 minutes to put in place using the configuration extract listed in the post below. This plugin will also enable this rule to any user in the assigned to value, as opposed of setting up an alert for each user individually.
This post will show the exact configuration you need to perform the alert notification.
Notify AssignedTo user of new work (for a specific TFS project)

Whats the best way to deliver TFS build status notifications to the team?

I like the status email sent by TFS's alerts mechanism when a build breaks.
However I would like to send such an email to the entire team and not rely on the team to subscribe to the alert...
Having a hard time producing a nice and detailed enough message by myself when overriding the "OnBuildBreak" and using the MSBuildCommunityTasks EMail task.
Is there a way to force a TFS alert to be sent to a list of emails?
Can you recommend of a way to send such status notifications?
You could try.
Brian the build bunny
:-)
The Team Build Tray Notification tool what is included in the TFS 2008 Power Tools is very useful for this.
See Buck Hodges' blog for screenshots and more information.
I don't want to dig up an old topic, but for those that stumble upon it two years late (like me), this is built into TFS 2010 now.
Set up an email alias for the team on the mail server, and enter this when subscribing to the mail.
Try the Team Foundation Server Event Subscription Tool.
This allows you to send emails to any address when any TFS event occurs.
Brian the Build bunny is nice but the Nabaztagtag WiFi Rabbit bunny is pretty expensive and is currently out of stock.
The Team Build Tray Notification that comes with TFS is ok, but:
It's damn slow and polling is not configurable
It's too easy to miss the build being broken for projects you care about
Doesn't support different actions for different projects (e.g. show a modal dialog for project #1, but just show a short tray alert for project #2)
Doesn't support different triggers for different people (e.g. show notifications for just me on project #1 or anyone on project #2)
No information on what broke the build (e.g. compiler error, unit test, integration test)
No audible notification if system's on mute
No last build times
So there's an open source project on Google Code that runs in the tray that's available on Google Code: http://code.google.com/p/siren-of-shame/. That project can work independently but it's designed to work with a USB Siren that is available for sale.
I generally like the TFS Build Status Tray by Rob Aquila. Be sure to get the 1.0.1 Beta, as this lets you easily specify the projects to watch using a bit of GUI and also has a notify icon that changes color, so you only need to open the actual build status list when the icon turns red. The 1.0 version had a fixed icon, and only notify toasts in the corner of your screen.
There is also a version of the same tool that is meant to be shown full screen on a wall mounted display for instance.
The July release of TFS 2008 PowerTools adds an "Alert Editor" to Team Explorer. Adding Alerts is a breeze. It has a query tool similar to the Query tool.
In my mind, a open source project named 'Web Deployment Projects' can do this. your can search for it.

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