Let’s talk integration. TFS, in some ways, is really a platform upon which to integrate the different data silos you have in your business. For example, you might want to integrate a helpdesk tool with TFS bug tracking. so help desk tickets that are escalated become Bug work items in TFS. And then as Bugs are resolved and deployed, the help desk tickets are updated auto-magically. To help facilitate this type of integration, the TFS gods have blessed us with the TFS Integration Platform.
The TFS Integration Platform is a Codeplex project engineered and maintained by the ALM Rangers Team and the product team to facilitate the development of tools that integrate TFS with other systems. It currently is limited in scope to work items and version control. It deals with two primary scenarios: moving data into TFS from some other system (e.g. migrating code and history from some version control system into TFS), and synchronizing data between TFS and some other system (e.g. the help desk tool/TFS work item sync I mentioned earlier).
Implementation a solution that takes care of this isn’t trivial. In fact, one of the things my employer does is data migration and data synchronization implementations using the integration platform (or whatever is necessary to do the job). If that’s something you’re interested in, email me.
If you want to take on this type of problem yourself, the following links are invaluable:
TFS Integration Platform Migration Guidance (direct link) – This page contains the official documentation for the TFS Integration Platform project. You’ll also find a couple of videos on getting started (part 1 and part 2).
Both Willy-Peter Schaub and Matt Mitrik are part of the TFS Integration Platform team and blog about it from time to time. Curtis Pettit and Pei Gu also blog about TFS integration and migration.
How to Create an Adapter for the TFS Integration Platform from Robert MacLean (part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8, part 9, part 10, Appendix A, and Appendix B) – This epic series of posts will probably become the must-have resource when using the TFS Integration Platform. Excellent stuff.
There are a few Microsoft tools and third-party tools that may meet your needs out of the box. Here are a few:
Version Control Migration and Synchronization
Work Item Migration and Synchronization
I have the most personal experience with the VSS Converter and the TFS Bug Item Synchronizer for QC. My experience with version control migration has been mixed. Due to the differences between the VSS and TFS (TFS doesn’t have sharing and pinning, VSS history is often confusing and poor), some migration scenarios didn’t work well while others worked perfectly. I’m guessing some of the other tools have similar issues, so use them with caution.
I usually recommend that instead of migration source and history, teams should simply check-in the latest code from the foreign repository into TFS as new, and then make the old source control system read-only but keep it around as long as it’s needed. Many teams even prefer this option because it lets them leave their old “bad” history behind. But different teams have different needs, so do whatever makes the best sense for you and your organization.
Did I miss something valuable or goof? Let me know so I can fix it.
Thanks for the links to my blog
hi,
is there any work item migration and synchronization tool to integrate TFS to any helpdesk system.