Mathias Olausson [MVP]

Vill du kunna leverera mjukvara snabbare utan att förlora kvalitet? Då ska du komma till vårt seminarium om DevOps där vi förklarar hur denna roll kan hjälpa teamet styra upp sina leveranser så flödet från utveckling till test till produktion flyter på ett effektivt sätt.

Vi baserar såklart lösningen på senaste tekniker från Microsoft, bland annat Visual Studio 2013, TFS 2013, Microsoft Azure, PowerShell och Microsoft Release Management.

Den 10 juni kör vi i Stockholm och 12 september i Göteborg.

För mer information och bokning: http://informator.se/seminarier/seminarier/har-du-en-devops-i-ditt-team

I had the pleasure reviewing this great book on TFS customization by Gordon Beeming. It’s a short book (just the way we come to expect from the PACKT series) but it covers a big topic and in a very efficient way. Just look at the TOC:

• Customizing TFS process templates
• Customizing TFS Web Access
• Creating custom work item controls
• Creating service-side plugins
• Creating TFS scheduled jobs
• Customizing the TFS Build process

Not bad for a 82 pages book! I warmly recommend this nugget to anyone interested in learning more about how to extend and customize a TFS server.

Read more and order: http://www.amazon.com/Team-Foundation-Server-2013-Customization-ebook/dp/B00HYTDXJU

I’ve been involved in this ALM Rangers project for a long time and I’m happy to announce the release of the third edition of the guide!

The updated guide includes new content on:

• New capabilities for Lab Management using TFS 2013
• Best-practices for upgrading Lab Management and lab environments
• Using Windows Azure IaaS for lab environments

The guide is also considerably shorter, we’ve made great efforts to reduce the page count by removing obsolete content and referencing resources available on MSDN.

Download: https://vsarlabman.codeplex.com/releases/view/118041

A big thanks to the team who make this release possible!

Brian Minisi, Dave McKinstry, John Bergman, Mike Douglas,  Michael Fourie, Mathias Olausson, Richard Fennell, Vijay Machiraju  and Willy-Peter Schaub.

Förra veckan hade jag och min kollega Magnus Timner den stora glädjen att få prata med Dag König på Microsoft om det kära ämnet Visual Studio ALM 2012.

Dag spelade in våra diskussioner i en Pod Cast som finns att lyssna på här: http://buzzfrog.blogs.com/zabrak/2012/10/devcast-08-nyheterna-i-visual-studio-2012-alm.html.

Så lyssna in och hör mer om vad som är nytt i senaste versionen av Visual Studio och TFS!

Update: Ed Blankenship correctly pointed out to me that the control model is only changing for web client controls so there should be little work upgrading existing windows work item controls to 2012.

I’ve been hearing requests for some additional work item control types for TFS 2012. Years ago I added a few controls to the open-source project at http://witcustomcontrols.codeplex.com/ and these have been maintained up to TFS 2010. With TFS 2012 the model for web client custom controls on the web has changed and with that in mind I’ve been considering putting some effort into implementing a few common controls for both Windows and Web.

I’m curious what the most wanted set of custom controls would be. My guess is that atleast these would be useful:

• Multiselect control
• Checkbox
• Radiobutton
• Aggregation control. Based on rules show a sum of values (i.e. time remaining for a user story based on the sum of child tasks).
• Data-bound list. Based on a data source list a set of values (i.e. customer names from a CRM system)

Ideas? Comment this post or discuss at http://witcustomcontrols.codeplex.com/discussions.

Det finns fortfarande platser i Göteborg och Malmö för Visual Studio 2012 lanseringseventen jag och Peter kör tillsammans med Microsoft Sverige. Det kommer att bli massor av demos av den nya produkten, givetvis med fokus på ALM;

Dev Days: Visual Studio 2012
Microsoft och Transcendent Group AB presentera nyheterna i Visual Studio 2012 och lägger extra fokus på ALM. Vi går igenom applikationslivscykel kedjan från ide till verklighet. Applikationslivscykeln (ALM) ger dig möjlighet att utveckla bättre lösningar och applikationer på kortare tid.

Skaffa dig insikt om ALM-processen och dess fördelar. Visual Studio 2012 med Team Foundation Server ALM ger dig möjligheten att driva och följa upp dina applikationer och kvalitén. Med Test Professional kommer du säkerställa att dina krav testas.

Visual Studio 2012 ger dig möjligheten att bygga applikationer som adresserar Windows Phone, Windows 8, .NET framework.

Evenemanget är kostnadsfritt och körs mellan 9 och 16.

• 25/9 – Stockholm (fullt)
• 26/9 – Göteborg
• 27/9 – Malmö

Registrera dig här: https://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032518053&Culture=en-SE&community=0

I just found out that my presentations from TechDays 2012 are available online. If you missed the conference but would like to watch what we talked about the sessions can be found here:

• Build Lab in the Sky. First look at using the hosted TFS service with cloud-based build servers and test labs in Windows Azure.
• Continuous Feedback with Visual Studio 2012. A lap-around the new features in TFS 2012 for providing feedback on the team’s development work.

The presentations are in Swedish by the way. In case you wonder why the audio sounds strange…

Enjoy!

I’ve got a new job! Or should I say new employer? I decided a while back to join Transcendent Group and their ALM team to get even more focus on TFS, Visual Studio and ALM. I’ve been working with the team for several years so this is a great opportunity for me to work closer with some of the brightest people in our field.

So as of June 1 I am the ALM practice lead and head of the ALM team. If you want to get in touch you can find my contact info here.

Update 2012-06-15: Louis Pellerin, one of the developers of Urban Turtle, pointed out that the recommended way to make this kind of customization is to first create a copy of the configuration file. This is important since the default files will be removed when uninstalling Urban Turtle as part of a future upgrade.

I recently downloaded the latest update to the agile board plugin to TFS from Urban Turtle.

The main feature this time is the possibility to have custom columns on the team board. Say for instance that I’ve added a “Ready for Test” state in my work item model:

To add a custom column we need to edit the configuration file for our process. The configuration files are stored on the TFS server at:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Team Foundation Server 2010\Application Tier\Web Access\Web\UrbanTurtle\configuration\project

In my project I’m using the Microsoft Visual Studio Scrum 1.0 process template. The first thing to do when customizing Urban Turtle is to copy the template you want to change and work in the copy (Microsoft Visual Studio Scrum 1.0.xml in this case). Since the name of the configuration is stored in the configuration file we also need to change the name inside the file.

Next I edit the Tast Board, Columns section and add a new state, “Ready For Test”:

Then save the xml file and refresh the web page and watch the board show the new “Ready For Test” state.

This is a much wanted feature, thanks to the team to getting it out!

Here’s a list of other things added and improved in this release:

===================================
= Urban Turtle 3.15 Release Notes =
===================================
Release date : 15 May 2012

New Features

  * Dynamic number of columns on the task board
  * Copy/duplicate work item
  * Story Point/Effort Burndown Chart

Improvements
  * New design: iteration/area side panel, column headers, card stacks, warning area as well as other work items and footer sections
  * Spanish and German versions of the MSF Agile 5.0 process template mapping file

Fixed issues

  * Fixed card wrapping issue for screen resolutions lower than 1280 pixels

Brian Keller has posted about an update to the virtual machines Microsoft provides for testing Visual Studio and TFS 2010:

The May 2011 refresh of the Visual Studio 2010 RTM Virtual Machine with Sample Data and Hands-on-Labs is now available. This new version includes Service Pack 1 (of both Visual Studio 2010 and Team Foundation Server 2010), 5 new hands-on-labs / demo scripts, and an extended expiration date of November 1, 2011. Please note that if you are using the last version of the virtual machine it will stop working on June 1, 2011

The images are available here:

• Visual Studio 2010 RTM (Hyper-V)
• Visual Studio 2010 RTM (Windows [7] Virtual PC)
• Visual Studio 2010 RTM (Virtual PC 2007 SP1)