My team is currently using the CMMI board in Team Services and we would like to switch to the Agile board. I was told we can't just change the template, but I can't figure out how to export all of our open tickets to a new board. How do I easily change our team's board. Thanks!
At the moment this is technically not possible. When you choose a Process, during project creation, you can't change it to a new parent later. So you pick CMMI, or Agile or Scrum and later you can only change to a derived template.
What you can do though, is create an inherited process template and customize it until it looks and feels the same as another process template. It's quite a bit of work, but doable.
It is expected that changing from one base template to another will be added somewhere in the future. But at the moment it's not showing up on the TFS/VSTS feature timeline.
There is no easy import/export option either, though there are a few tools, like VSTS Sync Migration Tool that can copy over work items and map them to a new structure. I'll probably just be as much work as creating an inhertited process though.
Related
I have problem with configuration of AzureDevOps process.
My goal is simply automate work items - when work item changes state to done or is in state done on certain board I want to transfer it on other board.
I tried to achieve this by applying custom rules in my organization. Example:
I navigate to Organization Settings, select Process then I select process from list (is inherited from Scrum parent). Then I select bug (for example) and go to rules tab.
Here is screen of my configuration
Both Board no.1 and Board no.2 exist as Team Projects. I've added clearing assign to field and this one works properly.
I wondering if there is much easier way to automate moving work items through boards or team projects on status change.
I wondering if there is much easier way to automate moving work items
through boards or team projects on status change.
For this issue, I am afraid there is no easier way to achieve this requirement. Azure Devops has provided a built-in custom rule function to achieve this. This is already a very easy way.
In addition, we can also achieve this through the azure logic app, but this needs to be set in the azure portal. I don’t think it will be more convenient than custom rules.
To move work items to another project, you must be a member of the Project Administrators group or be granted explicit permissions to move work items.
If I create a new project and select the Agile process, my user stories will be grouped in iterations Eg "MyProject/Iteration 1".
However, If I create the project using Basic process and after the project has been created, changes the process to Agile I can group my user stories by Sprint Eg "MyProject/Sprint 1".
The latter is what I want, however as the process was set to Agile when the project was created (not by me), I'm trying to figure out how to change it to use Sprints as default?
Side note:
I cannot create a new project as I lack privileges
I cannot create a new process as I lack privileges
I cannot change to another process because I've already created a bunch or user stories
Although I can create sprints manually, I want it to be default.
Thank you!
From this document, we can know that iteration and sprints represent the same concept in the agile process.
Define Iteration Paths (aka sprints) and configure team iterations
So if you want to visually use Spirits as the default, you can add a new iteration named Spirit in team configuration, or change the name of the existing iteration to the Spirit style. Then set it as Default iteration. As shown in the following figure:
Because your current project is already Aglie process, the initial display must be MyProject/Iteration 1. If you want to display like MyProject/Sprint 1, you have to modify it later.
There are two ways to change the display: changing the process or manually modifying it.According to your Side note, obviously neither is feasible.
If you really want Spirits as default in agile progress project without any manual modification,you could submit a feature request in our Develop Community site. Our PM and product team will kindly review your suggestion.
There is no way to do this without changing the Process of your project.
Management would like to migrate all teams using Azure DevOps (VSTS) to a single project to make reporting and work roll-ups easier. if this is done can the individual teams still utilize templates customized to their specific needs or would they need to use the default template for the project.
Thanks
We are being asked to migrate to a "standard" company project but don't know if we will be able to have customization for our process
No. One team project has one process template. You can customize that process template however you wish, of course.
What you could do is create an inherited process in order to make your customizations, and change every Team Project to that Process.
You have to take into account that the customizations you have made to your Team Project could be affected when you change to a inherited process.
Test carefully with some test Team Projects before.
My team is looking to migrate many of our tools (SCM, bug-tracking, builds, testing) to TFS. We're considering moving each system in stages. For example, move source control first, bug/feature tracking next, etc...
Since we have to choose a process template to use source control (or anything in TFS) how locked in are we with the decision? I'm looking to avoid having to create another project later (or is that not as bad as I think it would be?).
I know I can in theory customize everything the process template configures after the fact (right?), but how feasible is this in practice?
Here is how I see things happening:
We migrate our source code. We choose Microsoft's CMMI template.
We create a new work item (or check-in note) that is a simple link to our legacy bug tracking system.
We work for awhile.
We wait until the powers that be (we're a decent sized software company) to work out a new TFS development workflow. This may be a simple collection of new work items or an entirely new template that configures all sorts of stuff.
We try to migrate our TFS project to this new system without loosing our history.
Will we be sorry we didn't just wait until all these decisions were finalized before using TFS?
So, you are right to think about your process template as there is a certain amount of "lock-in" however it isn't too severe. It's like you are stuck to your process template with honey rather than super glue.
Personally, I would start with the MSF Agile template. It is much lighter weight and contains less work items - so you more likley to want to add things to it (very easy in TFS, very well supported) rather than take them away (more complicated and not entirely satisfactory).
However, if the power's that be decide to go down an uber process definition process and magically come up with a new process template in 12 months time that they want you to use then it isn't completely lost. If you find that you want to create a brand new Team project, as long as it is on that server (or Project Collection in TFS 2010) then you can either branch your code over to the new team project (which means that history is somewhat obscured in current versions of the TFS clients) or you can create a new Team Project with an empty folder for source control and then move the child folders over from the old team project to the new one. This will preserve history perfectly as TFS maintains history for moves on the same TFS instance. Your work items from before the move will be stuck over in the old process template though and you'll need to decide if you want to copy them or just leave them to get closed out naturally.
Obviously, by actually using TFS for 12 months on real projects, when the powers that be come knocking you are also going to be in a much better position to know what you want your shiny new process template to look like - and I've often found that this is an excercise that just never happens and most people are happy tinkering around the edges of MSF Agile or pick something more prescriptive like Scrum For Team System.
Hope that helps,
Martin.
I have a client who is using one TFS project just for source control only and now wants to manage work items in a totally different TFS project, using a different process template, and intends to link changesets to work items across TFS projects.
I know that this is possible in TFS, but don't know what the limitations or issues that come with this configuration. e.g Build Summaries, Reporting, etc.
I would prefer branching the code into a new TFS project and managing code and work items together in one project, but need to know how the above method stacks up.
It'll work - I've occasionally had to associate checkins with work items from other projects. I haven't noticed any issues with reports or the like, that said this seems like an overly complex arrangement with little benefit.
Seems like a strange set-up to me. While it will work, TFS is designed for the check-ins and work items to be in the same team project so you won't really get the full benefit of the TFS features. Does the client know that they can modify the process template of the existing team project or do what you say and branch or even just move the source into a new team project.
We used this model to allow us to have separate projects but against the same source branch. It worked for a while but once we started being more adventurous with branches the model broke down. So as others have noted, there's no reason why technically you can't do this, it's not standard.