June 30, 2010 – Links and Quick Hits

The TFS train never stops…

Scrum for Team System Version 3 – How to model BUGS from Crispin Parker – This post talks about how to process and track bugs using Scrum for Team System, but really it’s a great read for anyone trying to get a better handle on bug tracking, even if Scrum and Agile aren’t in your vocabulary.

Effectively Tracking Cost in Scrum from Urban Turtle – This is more Scrum-related than TFS-related and talks about tracking cost in Scrum.  There’s good info here, although I tend to take a different approach.  I’m a big, big fan of tracking cost, but I believe most teams make tracking cost entirely too hard.  The author does provide an approach that will work, although it’s not detailed enough for my tastes.  That said, adopting Scrum can still be a huge step forward for many teams even if they can’t track cost quantifiers in detail, and the whole point is to get better at making software.  Tracking cost is definitely going to be the subject of a future article and a hot opinion on Story Points, as I’m a big believer in metrics, metrics, metrics (and Story Points aren’t really a metric).

TFS 2010 Coded UI Test Basic User Guide Is Published from Eran Ruso – Eran has finished another of his great guides and how-to documents with an installment on the basics of Coded UI testing.  If you are taking a first look at Coded UI testing and have some questions on how your manual testing effort can be utilized to promote your automated UI testing effort with Visual Studio, download the PDF and take a look.  If you are a power user, this guide probably won’t show you anything you haven’t seen already, but it’s a great resource if you are just getting your feet wet.

Application Lifecycle Management landing page at the Visual Studio Developer Center on MSDN – Just in case you haven’t seen it, there’s a great MSDN landing page with links to articles, blogs, videos, documents, and books that cover lots of ground on Team Foundation Server and Visual Studio 2010.  It’s a definite bookmark for TFS users and gurus alike.

June 29, 2010 – Links and Quick Hits

Today’s a big one.  Important stuff below.

Now Available: Visual Studio 2010 RTM Virtual Machine with Sample Data and Hands-on-Labs from Brian Keller – Thanks to Brian, Microsoft has now provided a virtual image of a configured TFS 2010 + Visual Studio 2010 machine complete with several labs to show off all the latest ALM-related features you’ve heard so much about.  You can download a couple of different options including a Hyper-V image, a Windows 7 Virtual PC image, or a Virtual PC 2007 SP1 image.  Everything blows up on December 15, 2010 so get it while the getting is good.  A lot of hard work went into this and if you want to test drive 2010 without the pain of installation and setup, this is your ticket.

Last Call: TFS 2010 Beta 2 and RC Expiring June 30th from Brian Harry – If you’re still using TFS 2010 Beta 2 for any reason (production or otherwise), you’ve got a day to get upgraded or extend the trial.  Brian has details on how to get 90 more days out of your setup in case everything’s not quite in order to go to the RTM.

Extending Work Item Tracking Context Menus from Team Foundation Server Team Blog – For those of your extending Visual Studio and TFS, this post is a must-read.  Basically, the work item tracking context menus are extensible, and that means there’s nothing stopping you from seamlessly integrating your extensions and the work item tracking capabilities in TFS.  The post contains plenty of details and code that should do more than just get you going.

C++ killed my grandpappy - Is C++ hard and where are the C++ coders hiding? from Scott Hanselman – Okay this isn’t necessarily TFS or ALM-related, but the C++ hacker in me couldn’t help myself in sharing.  I’ve spent the majority of my professional career writing C++, and even though I’ve written mostly C# in the last few years, I still consider myself a C++ programmer.  In this post the always interesting Scott Hanselman muses on C++ and talks about C++ development with Visual Studio.

June 28, 2010 – Links and Quick Hits

It’s Monday, and that means it’s time for a lap around the web to find the latest in TFS and Application Lifecycle Management links.

Scrum for Team System v3.0, MSF Agile v5.0 and Team Foundation Server Scrum v1.0 (beta) from Crispin Parker – This post does a comparison between the EMC Scrum template, The Microsoft Scrum template, and the MSF for Agile Scrum template.  The conclusion you can expect to get is that the Scrum for Team System template is the most accurate template when it comes to doing Scrum “by the book”.  That said, it’s been my experience that Bigfoot sightings are more common than teams following Scrum precisely as is prescribed.

TFS 2010 Upgrade Issue from Brian Harry – Remember that hotfix I posed last week regarding a version control bug that affects teams when they upgrade from 2008 to 2010?  Brian Harry offers a much more detailed explanation of the issue and what you need to do to fix it.  Kudos to the team for jumping on this issue quickly.

Patch Available for Cut or Copy displaying “insufficient memory” error in VS 2010 from The Visual Studio Blog – I haven’t seen this issue, but apparently many users are running into a problem where Visual Studio 2010 reports “insufficient memory” even when copying and pasting relatively small amounts of text.  A description of the bug is included in the post.  You can download the patch here.

Visual Studio ALM Rangers – Architecture Guidance gets “thumbs up” from Willy-Peter Schaub – The TFS Rangers team has released new Architecture Tooling Guidance on CodePlex.  I’ll be diving into it this week so I can’t comment much on what’s there, but if any of the other Rangers’ guidance is any indication this will be an indispensible resource for anyone trying to become acquainted with the Architect Tools.

June 25, 2010 – Links and Quick Hits

It’s Friday!  I’m doing the Buffalo Springs Lake Triathlon (the half-Ironman) this Sunday, so you’ll know next week if I survived!

Version Control 2010 Upgrade Hotfix Published from Matt Mitrik – Upgrading to TFS 2010, you might want to take a look at this hotfix that corrects an issue regarding the contents of labels and merge relationships.  The TFS 2010 upgrade process separates setup and configuration, and this hotfix is to be applied between those steps.  It feels a bit like a kludge, but that happens when you’re on the cutting edge.  To be fair, I’ve done a handful of upgrades and have yet to see this issue so if you’ve already upgraded and have a problem, the fix is detailed here.

Branching by Label in TFS 2010 from Matt Mitrik – If you’re version control folder is really a branch, you may have found the Branch by Label option missing when you create new branches.  This post talks about that omission, how to work around it (hint: use the command-line tools), and when you can expect to see it make its return.

VSTS 2010 Feature: ASP.NET profiler integration with Load Tests from Sean Lumley – In this post, Sean talks about one of the new features in 2010 that allows you to collect ASP.NET profiler information during Load Tests.  He includes step-by-step instructions showing how it’s done.  This was one in a terrific series of posts talking about various 2010 features (specifically in the Tester’s space) that you should really check out.

Search Work Items for TFS 2010 - New Extension from Mike Parks – This great extension allows you to search for work items via a simple search query box in the Visual Studio toolbar.  It’s a  far superior solution than searching in a work item query and is really a must-have for teams that use work items liberally.  You can download it here.

June 24, 2010 – Links and Quick Hits

USA Soccer advances to the second round and the longest match in history was played at Wimbledon.  But that’s not why we’re here…

TFS 2010 and the SQL Server Analysis Services Cube from Visual Studio Magazine (by Jeff Levinson) – This excellent article details some of the changes in the Analysis Services cube in Team Foundation Server 2010.  The cube is one of the unique features of TFS that currently isn’t available in competing products.  It’s the machine that provides all of those pretty reports we know and love.

Visual Studio 2010 ALM Presentations from My Recent Roadshow from Brian Keller – Brian spent a month spreading the TFS gospel throughout Europe and South Africa and has posted his slides from that trip. Channel 9 published a few videos from his presentations including A Lap Around Visual Studio 2010 Application Lifecycle Management, Software Testing with Visual Studio 2010: Part 1, and Software Testing with Visual Studio 2010: Part 2.  He’s also hard at work on new virtual machines for Visual Studio 2010 and TFS 2010 RTM, so stay tuned.

Visual Studio TFS Branching Guide 2010 from the VSTS Rangers – I commonly work with clients to identify and implement better practices around their branching and merging policies, and most of what I recommend can be found in this terrific set of documentation on best practices for branching.  A number of scenarios are explored so the reader can identify the practice that works best for their specific situation, and a number of nice graphics effectively illustrate the various strategies that are discussed.  In sum, this is probably the single-most recommended piece of documentation that I promote to my clients.  Check it out.

What happened to witexport.exe and witimport.exe in Team Foundation Server 2010? How do I edit work items in TFS2010? from Ben Day – TFS 2010 has brought a few changes in the admin tools space, as the witimport and witexport tools have been removed and replaced with a single witadmin tool.  In this post, Ben talks about the change and catalogs the other capabilities of witadmin.

June 23, 2010 – Links and Quick Hits

The first Wednesday of Summer here in the northern hemisphere, and in Texas that means it’s hot.

Managing Multiple TFS Build Agents with Tags from Alkampfer’s Place – This post talks about a new build feature in TFS 2010 Build:  build tags!  Now that build controllers dispatch builds and build agents run the builds, what do you do if you have multiple build agents and they are configured differently?  How can you make sure the build controller makes an intelligent decision to send a build to the “right” build machine?  This post deals with that very situation and explains how to tag both your build agents and your build definitions.

Defining Test Categories to Group Your Tests from MSDN – This terrific MSDN library article introduces the new test feature that allows you to group your tests via Test Categories instead of test lists.  Test Categories are the preferred way to group tests in 2010, as one of these days you’ll likely see test lists deprecated.  Using Test Categories also means no more .vsmdi file management (and no more hassling with the issue with multiple .vsmdi files in a single solution).

Microsoft Test Manager Test Case Versioning from Anna Russo – Anna talks about best practices for versioning your test cases in Microsoft Test Manager and working with Test Lists.  Automated tests are versioned in version control and test cases are managed through work items. This is the one place where managing manual tests in version control provided a superior solution.  But that battle has been fought and that ship has sailed.

Scrum Masters Workbench Goes Gold from Crispin Parker – EMC has released, for free, their new release of the Scrum Master’s Workbench.  This application, as Crispin points out, allows you to interact with work items using a task board and to better control project iteration path information.  Go get the download, check it out, and let me know what you think via email or Twitter.

June 22, 2010 – Links and Quick Hits

Here’s what a lap around the web brought us today.

Visual Studio Performance Testing Quick Reference Guide (Version 2.0) Published from Ed Glas – Everything you could have possible wanted to know about Load Testing is contained in the Performance Testing Quick Reference Guide.  Ed details the release and reels off the unbelievable number of topics contained inside.  The guide contains 97 new or updated articles.  Wow!

Inside the Team Foundation Server Power Tools (part 1 and part 2) from Visual Studio Magazine (by Mickey Gousset) – In this set of articles, Mickey details the contents of the Team Foundation Server Power Tools.  For those of you unfamiliar with the power tools, they are a must have extension that contains a number of features and capabilities that many teams have found are essential to their use of TFS.  Why the Changeset Comments Policy isn’t included in TFS by default is one of life’s great mysteries.

Introducing the Visual Studio ALM Rangers from Willy-Peter Schaub – Great series of posts introducing the Visual Studio ALM Rangers.  Learn all about this great team whose contributions have made the lives of consultants like me and teams all over the world much easier.  I hope future profiles will have links to the blogs of the person profiled.  Great stuff.

Web Performance Testing with Visual Studio 2010 from Visual Studio Magazine (by Benjamin Day) – Web Performance Tests are a bit of an enigma now that teams have automated UI testing tools for web applications.  Ben talks a bit about creating Web Performance Tests including sections on parameterizing and data-driving Web tests in what is apparently the first in a series of articles.

June 21, 2010 – Links and Quick Hits

A brand new week, with some brand new links!  Let’s get started…

Upgrading to Team Foundation Server 2010 in Visual Studio Magazine (by Mickey Gousset) – Now that more than a few of us have been using TFS 2010 for a while now, those of you who have held off upgrading can go ahead and get rolling.  Mickey talks about the TFS upgrade process and the potential complexities that you might encounter.

Deploying Process Template Changes Using TFS 2010 Build from Ed Blankenship – Ed generalizes and automates an activity that I’ve done more times than I can count – updating an existing Team Project’s process template.  In doing so, Ed also shows both the ease-of-use and flexibility of the TFS Build tools.

Managing TFS Artifacts Using TFS from Ed Blankenship – Ed’s been busy, posting two pieces of new content in successive days.  In this post he talks about managing TFS artifacts using TFS.  Due to the extensibility and complexity of TFS, there are a number of artifacts that need managing that relate to the configuration of a TFS implementation.  So naturally, you should use TFS to manage TFS!

Modify Build Failure Work Item in TFS 2010 Build from Jakob Ehn – When a build fails, by default TFS will create a bug  so you can track the unplanned work and the association with the build fix.  To customize this activity, in the old days you’d modify the Team Build MSBuild file.  Now that there is no Team Build MSBuild file, customization happens via a TFS 2010 Build workflow activity.  This post details how it’s done.

June 18, 2010 – Links and Quick Hits

Here are a few gems I dug up to help you finish the week.

Executing Legacy MSBuild Scripts in TFS 2010 Build from Jacob Ehn – Great post on executing and using legacy MSBuild scripts using the new build workflow features in TFS 2010 build.  There’s no requirement to “upgrade” your build scripts to Windows Workflow if it’s not necessary.  Feel free to wrap them in the MSBuild workflow activity!

Visual Studio 2010: How to extend the architecture tools from Jennifer Marsman – Just like nearly everything else in Visual Studio, the architect tools are extensible too.  The Work Item Visualizer I linked to yesterday is an example of that. This post gives an example of extending the Class Diagram tools.

Description of Tables and Columns in VS 2010 Load Test Database from Sean Lumley – This post details the tables and columns that are part of the Visual Studio 2010 Load Test Database.  The Load Test tools are deep, deep features and are largely unappreciated.  Check out this post to get a better understanding of what’s collected in a Load Test and where it’s stored.

Running Code Coverage in TFS 2010 Builds from Alkampfer’s Place – If you’re running tests during your build, code coverage data is free.  This post details how to set up code coverage during your build process and what software is required to make it work.

Have a great link to share or know of a great link that should be shared?  Let me know.

June 17, 2010 – Links and Quick Hits

Thursday!  Almost to the weekend.

TFS 2010 Microsoft Certification Exam (70-512) Available from Ed Blankenship – Ed reveals the new TFS 2010 Certification Exam.  From what I hear, a lot of hard work went into making this exam worthwhile, so if certifications are your thing (or of interest to your employer or a prospective employer) you should definitely take a look.

Introducing the TfsConnection, TfsConfigurationServer and TfsTeamProjectCollection Classes from Taylor Lafrinere – A change in TFS architecture means a change in the TFS client object model.  These changes include ways to interact with Team Project Collections.  I just discovered this blog, and it’s a treasure trove of great information.  Subscribed.

Preview of MSDN Library Changes from Scott Guthrie – ScottGu gives a preview of potential online MSDN library changes.  They are trying to improve navigation and usability of the site, so take a look at the preview and let the MSDN team know what you think.  If my experiences are any indication, they do listen and take your feedback into account so don’t be shy.

Work Item Visualizer for TFS 2010 - New Extension from Mike Parks – A great new extension on the Visual Studio Gallery allows you to leverage the DGML tools in the Visual Studio modeling features to visualize TFS work items.  This tool is based on the work that was done in the Work Item Visualization tool on CodePlex.

Team Table from Access-It Labs – TFS 2010 and Microsoft Surface mash-up to do iteration planning via the Surface table.  Very awesome.  Videos inside.