I’d like to start my blog and speak about Team Foundation Server. How we use it in our work, how it helps us to do developing. It will be focused on TFS reports and their ability to turn planning and analysis processes from boring and hardworking to smart and simple.
I would like to start from basic scheme of our development process and describe the structure of our Work Items.
We have Request Registration Page (RRP) application: simple self-developed tool that gives the possibility to work with Web-interface to our business and developers that do not code in Microsoft solutions. Through special interface all changes transfer to TFS and become Work Items. All planning and analysis are done in TFS (by using special Work Item fields), and all code changes are also done in TFS linking as Changesets to Work Items. Every hour information from TFS databases transfer through basic mechanisms to TFSWarehouse (OLAP) and so we’re getting a list of reports that show us how all processes are going.
First I’ve taken Agile methodology and redesign greatly basic structures of prepared Work Items. Due to our RRP restrictions all types of requests (Change Request, Bugs etc) were united in a single Work Item. Fields that comes from RRP cannot be modified in TFS. I will display the picture with them and also give 1-2 words description to each of them in the next post.