Open work items from MS Project directly

When you manage your development projects in Visual Studio Team System using MS Project 2003 do you usually find out that there are work item fields that you need to edit which are not supported in MS Project by default?

For some fields the problem can be solved by editing the synchronization settings and bringing the appropriate fields in the Project file, but most of the time the only real solution is to open the work item editing form in the Visual Studio’s Team Explorer. In fact that means that you will be switching contexts between MS Project and VS more than you would like to. It is not only annoying and clumsy not to be able to do everything in the same tool; it is simply inefficient as well.

To solve the problem I have developed a simple MS Project Add-In which adds one new button to the Team System integration toolbar in MS Project. The button is called “Open work item” (see picture below) and that is what it does. As soon as you place a cursor in a row of some work item (as opposed to an empty row) button will be activated. If you click it, the usual work item editing form will appear. There you will be able to edit every last attribute of the work item.

There is one restriction in the current version of the add-in: because of the way mapping data is accessed (parsing the extended properties embedded in the Project file), the Project file needs to be saved at least once before the new button will become active. This restriction will soon be removed.



[Update, 25.10.2007. download link removed. use the links below]

Enjoy!
[Update, 25.10.2007: Ekobit released TeamCompanion for MS Project and TeamCompanion for Excel. These two free, fully supported addins for MS Project and Excel implement the "Open work item" button and make easy editing of the work items in Excel or Project possible.]

MS publishes Specifications for Visual Studio and .NET Orcas

Want to see what the future brings for Visual Studio and .NET in the Orcas timeframe? Go and fetch the specifications here: Feature Specifications for Visual Studio and .NET Framework "Orcas"
It's exciting!
P.S. The specs are in XPS format.

DEVWD17 Team System Adoption Best Practices – promised resources

Thanks again to everyone who attended our two whiteboard discussions at TechEd.
Neno has already written about some of the resources that we have promised to put on the blog here: http://msmvps.com/blogs/vstsblog/archive/2006/11/10/_5B00_TechEd-Developers-2006_5D00_-Post-Conference-Material-for-DEVWD17-Team-System-Adoption-Best-Practices.aspx

Here are some additional resources:

• TFSLInks – makes sharing in TFS possible (tool); my previous entry about it


• Document: From VSS to TFS - An Introduction to Team Foundation Server Version Control from a Visual SourceSafe User's Perspective (article)


• TFS migration Blog – a place to look for upcoming migration toolkit (blog)


• Planning a team project - A list of questions you must answer to determine whether you may want to create a new team project or expand an existing project. (documentation)
• Walkthrough: Setting up Team Foundation Server with Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) (documentation)

A short recap of the SSL connectivity story:

• If it should be accessible from Internet, the TFS should be in the DMZ


• Since TFS and the Build Server (BS) communicate using .NET remoting (default port 9191) , BS must be in the DMZ as well


• BS can deploy the builds only on file shares and only using file sharing protocol – the only logical option is to configure the BS to deploy on a file share on the TFS. This file share should be published as a web folder accessible using HTTPS. This way, BS uses file sharing protocol to deploy the builds and the TFS users use HTTPS to access those builds.


• Web page kind of build reports (the one you open when you follow the link in the build completion notification mail message) is generated using xml+xsl. The links in the report that lead to the builds have hardcoded the usage of the file share protocol which contradicts the usage of HTTPS. To solve that problem, the file Build.xsl in the Program files/Team Foundation Server/Web Services/Build/Transforms folder on the TFS must be modified so that HTTPS protocol is used for the links instead of file sharing.


• The integrated kind of the build reports (the one you get when you double click in the build list in VS) can not be corrected. You should use the links from the web kind instead.

Here are the references from the slide deck once again:

• Official Team System Web sitehttp://msdn.microsoft.com/teamsystem


• Rob Caron’s Bloghttp://blogs.msdn.com/robcaron/


• MSDN Documentation on Visual Studio Team System http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms304624.aspx


• Team Foundation Server SDKhttp://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa398956.aspx


• Team Foundation Administrator’s Guidehttp://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=2aed0ecc-1552-49f1-abe7-4905155e210a&displaylang=en1552-49f1-abe7-4905155e210a&displaylang=en


• Neno’s Web site on VSTShttp://www.dotnet-online.com/teamsystem/


• Neno’s Blog http://www.msmvps.com/vstsblog/


• Ognjen’s Bloghttp://ognjenbajic.com/blog/

If you didn’t find the answer to your question, please either write me a mail or leave a comment

Hear me speak at Tech Ed Developers 2006 in Barcelona

This year’s Tech Ed Developers 2006 will be my eighth Tech Ed as an attendant, but the first one as a speaker. Next week in Barcelona Neno Loje, a fellow VTST MVP, and I will hold two whiteboard discussion sessions on Team Foundation Server Adoption best practices.

Whiteboard discussions, as opposed to the more usual breakout sessions, are held in smaller, more intimate rooms (with max. 60 people) where the accent is given on discussion and sharing best practices and real-world experience. This is an open form in which the speakers will merely lead the way and use the attendee feedback and questions to drive the session and content, giving equal opportunity to everyone to share and ask for information.

Here is the session abstract:
DEVWD17 Team System Adoption Best Practices
Neno Loje, Ognjen Bajic
Thu Nov 9 09:00 - 10:15 , Thu Nov 9 15:45 - 17:00
It's a common mistake to think that installing the Team System products is enough to get started and unleash the full power. In fact Team System gets really useful and unfolds its effectiveness by being customized and tweaked to the needs of your organization. Since this is vastly an individual task this session covers the top 10 customizations from the consulting experience of the speaker such as Continuous Integration, enabling rich formatting in the description field for work items, writing a comfortable work item quick entry tool.Neno Loje will host this whiteboard discussion jointly with his fellow Team System MVP Ognjen Bajic.

Additionally, Neno and I will be at the Ask-The-Experts (ATE) booth at the following times:
Wednesday, 8 November 2006 16:30 - 17:00
Friday, 10 November 2006 10:15 - 10:45

Various new VSTS related resources

• Ed Hintz on Visual Studio Package Load Failures – What's wrong with my package? With hints on how to Turn on Visual Studio Logging, Turn on Fusion Logging and Run Depends on the assembly.


• New edition of the Team Foundation Server Administrator's Guide ready for download as a CHM file (NOTE: Viewing Downloaded CHM Files).

From the list of contents:
o Team Foundation Server Planning
o Migrating to Team Foundationo Administering Team Foundation Server
o Administering Team Foundation Source Control
o Administering Team Foundation Build
o Customizing Work Item Types
o Customizing Process Templates
o Customizing Team Foundation Build

• James Manning on new ISAPI filter coming with SP1 for TFS: “The TFS "extranet" ISAPI filter mechanics”. Well written and extremely rich in information!

[Update  5.11.2006: The detailed information on ISAPI filter, describing its inner workings and configuration, that James is giving in his blog, is already available in the new Team Foundation Server Administrator's Guide. One reason more to download this information-laden file! ]