Essay on Team Foundation Server Capabilities

Team Foundation Server (TFS) provides all the capabilities to fully manage the full software development lifecycle (SDLC). I've successfully implemented it in several environments and seen it perform well in meeting the needs of an IT organization. I've yet to run across any scenario for software development in a Windows-based environment (i.e. not counting Macs, Unix, etc.) where TFS couldn't be used effectively.

Out-of-the-box TFS fully implements the CMMi-3 and Agile Scrum methodologies. Implementing it for an organization is just a matter of starting a new TFS Team Project, setting up a list of tasks in the TFS Work Items catalog to accomplish the organizational mandates and setting up organizational folders & document templates in the team project SharePoint portal site that gets auto-generated when a new TFS team project is created. If an organization seeks to invest in automating the project launch/management process then one of the out-of-the-box TFS process templates can be customized/imported into TFS so that whenever a new team project is created that all the organizational mandates will be there (i.e. document templates, work items, workflow, control policies, reports, etc.).

TFS is a back end for IT project workers using Visual Studio in the same way that MS Exchange is the back end for end users using Outlook for email. There are 4 primary editions of Microsoft Visual Studio Team Suite (VSTS) for developers, architects, testers and database modelers/administrators. Learning/using the TFS capabilities in Visual Studio is quite intuitive for those already familiar with the Microsoft Visual Studio platform. In fact TFS was specifically built with Visual Studio users in mind.

Some of the key TFS features are:

(1) Robust work items tracking is provided. Each work item has attributes (i.e. Fields, Columns) to store information such as Title, Description, Iteration, Area, Discipline, AssignedTo, Priority, Hours Completed, Hours Remaining, Start Date, End Date, Related Builds, Related Work Items, related Version Control Items, related Version Control Changesets, Hyperlinks, Attachments, etc. The attributes available depend on the work item type (WITs). For the Agile process template the WITs are QoS requirements, bugs, tasks, scenarios, and tests. The CMMi process template includes Requirements and Review WIT's. The Process Template Editor can be used to create/modify WIT templates in order to allow you to track almost anything in a work item and to setup workflow rules/procedures with the work items of these WIT's.

(2) Robust version control using true client/server and web services technology. The TFS version control data is stored in SQL Server. Earlier version control systems such as SourceSafe and PVCS are much like dBase or ISAM files where data corruption, uncleared locks and other processing errors are more commonplace. That's because these legacy products have no true, reliable client/server processing. Performance is noticably improved in TFS over SourceSafe. Features such as shelving, changesets processing, branching, merging and reporting are quite effective/useful in TFS.

(3) SQL Server Reporting Services is used by TFS. There are about 2 dozen reports out-of-the-box that meet most project management needs. Reports can be created/modified to meet the needs for a specific project for the organizational purposes. A data warehouse that integrates all the version control, project management, work item tracking, attachments, builds, integration and reporting information is provided. Its cubes with measures/dimensions are auto-refreshed according to a configurable schedule.

(4) Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Project integrate well with TFS. Its easily possible to add/edit work items in these tools for any TFS team project. Project plans can be generated in MS Project and imported into TFS. To Do lists can be created in MS Excel and imported into TFS. Or to do lists or checklists can be copied/pasted into Excel from some other program in order to create TFS work items.

(5) A SharePoint portal site is created for each new TFS team project. In this portal a user on the team (or in the management & project users communities) can participate with as limited/open collaboration functionality as needed. The documents/reports available through Visual Studio (or other front ends using TFS data) are available in this portal. All WSS 3.0 functionality/capabilities is available in each TFS team project portal site.

(6) TFS Build Management is versatile glue for marrying programming/testing, bugs/resolutions, development/maintenance and implementations together. As many build projects as needed can be created for a team project. Build parameters such as schedule, build machine, destination, source code snapshot, notifications and build errors handling can be made out-of-the-box. As work items for bugs, development tasks, tests, etc. are completed then builds where the bugs were found or resolved will be related.

(7) TFS is fully extensible. All features are available in .NET namespaces and/or server configuration utilities where customizations, extensions and integration with any application/process/workflow can be made. The market is starting to see many TFS third party tools being built for purposes such as timesheet entry, task time tracking, resource planning, status reporting, integration with CRM/ERP suites, integration with accounting systems (i.e. GL, AP, AR, OE, etc.), integration with system admin utilities, etc. are being performed. Developers building apps in platforms such as Java, Oracle, Mainframes, etc. can still use TFS thanks to the extensibility capabilities of the TFS core.

(8) Security can be handled at the server-level, team project level or area level. In each team project a hierarchy of areas can be created. It can be as simple as one node or as complex with N-generations of M+ nodes per generation or however complex the security needs are for a team project to restrict/grant access to read/edit information or grant/revoke rights at the server, team project or area level. Just a FYI that there is an Area attribute for each work item in TFS and only an end user with change rights on both the old Area and new Area can change a work item's Area. Also keep in mind that the rights assigned at root node levels trickle down to their children/leaf nodes. And at any server/project/area node the rights can be assigned to either a TFS user or a TFS group. A TFS group is a collection of Active Directory users and/or Active Directory groups that has been created at the server level or at the team project level. This security model can handle any realistic security requirement for all enterprise-wide SDLC processes. However an important thing to keep in mind is that the server-level administrators can get access to ALL data on the TFS server where they have server-level access. Its also important to remember that a VSTS user (or any Excel/Project/SharePoint/3rd party user of TFS) can use multiple/unlimited TFS servers at the same time without incurring extra per-seat costs for Visual Studio and CAL’s.

(9) Perhaps the greatest feature of TFS is how well it integrates the core SDLC processes elements contained therein - work item tracking, version control, build management, reporting and external integration. One example on how well this works is the need to set a policy that developers will regularly report what tasks they're working on and what code is associated. In this case a policy can be established that a developer can only checkin changes by first associating work item(s) and entering changeset comments. In addition as every checkin/change is timestamped its possible to provide very robust/detailed time/effort reporting. Rules can also be put in place (out of the box for simple rules, customize for complex rules) to immediately notify certain users when certain events occur such as a user reporting a bug, a build not being successful, certain work items being marked as "done", critical path tasks not being done in time, certain versioned items being checked in or someone making a change to work items assigned to you.

If you have any other questions on TFS then please let me know.