Release Management Web.Token.Config Tokenization

In this video we will see how to deploy web application using TFS Build and Release Management tokenization. We will have 3 sites deployed using connection string to 3 different DB with help of web.token.config file.

Continuous Deployment by TFS, Azure and VSO

In this video we will discuss how to achieve CI and CD i.e. Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment by TFS Build and Azure websites and Visual Studio Online.
We will see a scenario where a developer will modify code and check-in, this will trigger CI Build. Once the CI Build is completed the Build Artifact are published in VSTS. Now Release will kick-start because it is set for Continuous Deployment. During the Release the Build output i.e. web site content is hosted on website in Azure PaaS.

TFS Work Item Customization Part 3

In this Work Item Customization Part 2 video, we will discuss basics about customizing Team Foundation Server work Items.
We will discuss about adding new a backlog item "Initiative" to backlog page or portfolio Management. We also discuss about customizing Category and Processconfig file.

TFS Work Item Customization Part 2

In this Work Item Customization Part 2 video, we will discuss basics about customizing Team Foundation Server work Items.
We will see about adding new States and Transitions, work item conditions/rules like Required and Read only, restricting state to certain TFS group and dependent drop-downs.

• Define State and Transition like In-Progress to Review, Review to Closed 
• State based condition like Field as ReadOnly in Review state 
• Group based condition like Review state should be available only for Reviewer Group 
• Dependent Drop down Field Ex: 
• Category 1 
• SubCategory 1.1
• SubCategory 1.2
• SubCategory 1.3
• Category 2 
• SubCategory 2.1
• SubCategory 2.2
• Category 3
• SubCategory 3.1  

TFS Work Item Customization Part 1

In this Work Item Customization Part 1 video, we will discuss basics about customizing Team Foundation Server work Items. We will see how to Export Task, show from both Visual Studio Process Editor and Command line. How to edit the work item definition in VS Process Editor and also how to customize using Notepad++. We will see

• How to change work item type Name, Add a Text Field and Text Box and Import using command line.
• Open in VS Editor and Add a Field with allowed values, add control in UI and Import using Visual Studio Process Editor

 

VSTS TeamProject Monitor

In this Blog we will discuss about a new VSTS extension "VSTS TeamProject Monitor (Project List)" developed by Canarys a Microsoft DevOps Consulting company. The extension allows you to view the total number of team projects created for an account, and option to delete one or more Team projects at one go.
Below are the feature of this VSTS extension:

• Count of Active Team projects for logged in VSTS account
• Lists all the active Team Projects
• Display Process Templates used for creating the respective Team Project
• Displays the Version Control type the Team Project uses
• Total Work items count for the project
• Option to delete one or multiple Team Projects by selecting the checkbox
• Searching the team Projects by Title
• And option to create a New Team Project from the same UI

To access the tool, browse to the VSTS Marketplace and search for the VSTS TeamProject Monitor or browse the below URL. You should see as shown below to get started.

https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=canarysautomationspvtltd.VSTS-TeamProject-Monitor

Click on Install and choose your VSTS Account to which this extension has to be installed. And click Continue.

Once the account and permissions are verified click on Confirm button.

Once the extension is installed, click on "proceed to the account" button.

In our VSTS account click on settings or Gear icon and you can see Project List as below. Click on it

This will display the list of projects with meta data information and also facility to select multiple Projects and delete at one go.

You would have created lot of projects, may be you are testing one of your extension, doing R&D, or you are trainer/consultant and create projects for demo purpose. This extension will help to clean your VSTS account with unwanted Projects with less effort and time. Just image if you had delete 100 Team Projects one by one how much frustrating it would be. "VSTS TeamProject Monitor (Project List)" is helpful in this scenario.

Thanks for your time reading this post.

VSTS Copy Dashboard Tool

In this blog, I am going to talk about VSTS Copy Dashboard tool. This tool helps to replicate/copy the dashboards from one team to single or multiple teams in same VSTS account or another.
Assume we had setup nice Dashboards with widgets and charts using all custom work item queries, widgets on Build, Release Definitions, code, and sprint related charts etc. Setting up such kind of dashboards will take lot of time and effort and its little creative job 😊.
Now let’s say we have do it again for other Team Projects or Teams in same Project, huh it would be frustrating. VSTS Copy Dashboard comes to our rescue, this tool/app reads the dashboard(s) we have setup and replicates to multiple Teams & Projects in one go, isn’t it wonderful! Yes, Canarys a Microsoft DevOps Consulting company has developed this tool to help VSTS users to copy what they have done in one Project/Team to any other projects/teams provided it follows same process methodology and contains certain basic pre-requisites. And I remind you this feature has been asked multiple times in VSTS User Voice. So let us see how to use this.

To access the tool, browse to the VSTS Marketplace and search for the Copy Dashboard. You should see as shown below to get started.

Once you click on 'Get Started' button, you will get a login page as shown below:

Sign in with your VSTS Credentials i.e. Hotmail, outlook or your Organizational account.

Once you logged in with valid credentials, you will be redirected to account selection page where you can select VSTS Account and copy mode as shown below:

Currently the tool provides five modes of copying the dashboard as listed below:

1. Multiple teams within same team project

At present, only 1st one is enabled for the users and for others you need to request to tool owner to get access to below modes of copying dashboard.

1. Target multiple teams single team project within same VSTS account
2. Target multiple teams single team project but different VSTS account
3. Target multiple teams Different multiple team projects within same VSTS account
4. Target multiple teams Different multiple team project but different VSTS account

Upon selecting any of the four other modes you get a pop-up, select check-boxes for all the copy options you want and click on "I'm interested" button as shown below:

Once you get confirmation mail for other copy options, log in again and select the account and copy modes. Or you can continue with first option “multiple teams within same team project” without waiting for registration confirmation mail.
After selecting Account and mode click on continue button. You will see Source Selection and Target Selection. Under Source select the team project and Team from which you want to copy/replicate dashboard to other teams. Then select the Teams you wish to have this customized dashboard configured to. Then click on "Copy dashboard" button below.

After the dashboards are copied to all the target Teams you get a success message, and a link to VSTS Account. Navigate to your Teams and Projects to see the copied Dashboard. You should see the new Dashboard with all your widgets, charts in your Teams and Projects.

Just imagine if we have to reconfigure the dashboard, queries, charts, widgets etc. to all the 10,20,30 or more Teams or Projects. We would have spent days on this. The tool does for us in few minutes and it takes hardly 5 minutes of our time to carry out the steps rest tool will handle. That’s beauty of Microsoft VSTS API’s. Thanks to the developers of Copy Dashboard for making life easy for VSTS users.

Thanks for your time reading this post.

Regards,

Nagaraj

VSTS VM's and HOL's for beginners

If anyone wants to try their hands on VSTS/TFS can refer below labs by Microsoft.

These labs/VM's will give you ready made infrastructure and learning materials to quickly understand the concepts and features available in VSTS/TFS. Whether you are .Net developer or Java or Azure developer these labs should be of greater help to kick start your Microsoft DevOps journey using Microsoft product family.

To learn more  about the on-premise tool Team Foundation Server refer below URL:
TFS Labs

You can access the above labs using Microsoft TechNet Virtual Labs also. This provides a quick and easy way to evaluate and test Microsoft’s newest products and technologies through virtual environments that do not require any complex setup or installation. You can use virtual labs online immediately for free :)
TFS Virtual TechNet Labs

To learn more about the SaaS offering of Microsoft Visual Studio Team Services aka VSTS (famously called TFS on cloud):
VSTS Labs

If you are Java developer and wondering how Microsoft products can help achieve ALM/DevOps for your Java application development, refer below lab:
Java Labs


If you are in need of any training or help on DevOps, VSTS, TFS or Azure you can contact me: nagrajbec@gmail.com

Thanks for your time reading this post.

Regards,

Nagaraj