TFS vNext video from Teched up on Channel9

Cameron Skinner’s TechEd session that goes into more depth on the announcements for TFS vNext is up on Channel 9. Just downloading it for to watch on the train to London this afternoon. I tried streaming live on the East Coast mainline before, their on train WiFi is just not up to it.

May 18, 2011 · 1 min · Richard Fennell

Announcements at TechEd USA 2011 about TFS vNext and a Java API available now

Watching the keynote of TechEd 2011 there were some interesting announcements on the vNext for TFS (the TFS section starts about 1:20 into the keynote). Storyboarding Assistant – A new product using PowerPoint as the core tools to gather requirements New web based dashboard to help manage requirement work items, with loads of drag and drop and pulling much of the functionality of the current Excel planning workbooks into the browser. A new web based taskboard (that was demo’d using a huge touch screen monitor) Giving the developer a task oriented means to say what work they are working on, and behind the scenes setting their workspace appropriately New tooling to allow users to provide feedback on the release in an MTM like style Also mentioned was code review tooling, intellitrace in production and much more… Have a look at the keynote (the video is available now) and breakout session video streams when they appear. Also there is more detail on Jason Zanders blog ...

May 16, 2011 · 1 min · Richard Fennell

Speaking at Microsoft’s “Application Lifecycle Management for Independent Software Vendors”

In the 27th June I will be speaking on Lab Management at Microsoft’s “Application Lifecycle Management for Independent Software Vendors” event at TVP. For more details see the Microsoft event site

May 13, 2011 · 1 min · Richard Fennell

Cross domain usage of TFS Integration Platform

Whist trying to do a cross domain migration of some source between two TFS2010 servers, I got the less than helpful runtime exception System.ArgumentNullException: Value cannot be null. Parameter name: activeWorkspace at Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Migration.Tfs2010VCAdapter.TfsUtil.CleanWorkspace(Workspace activeWorkspace) at Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Migration.Tfs2010VCAdapter.TfsVCMigrationProvider.ProcessChangeGroup(ChangeGroup group) On checking the _tfsintegrationservice_.log I found the more useful TFS::Authenticate : Caught exception : Microsoft.TeamFoundation.TeamFoundationServerUnauthorizedException: TF30063: You are not authorized to access tfsserver.otherdomain.com. —> System.Net.WebException: The remote server returned an error: (401) Unauthorized. ...

May 6, 2011 · 1 min · Richard Fennell

Our WP7 TFS Phone Explorer has won first prize in the Red Gate WP7 competition

Great news the Black Marble’s WP7 TFS Phone client has won one of the three top prizes on Red Gate Software’s Windows Phone 7 Competition You can read the judges comments on the competition blog, I would stress it only mentions my name, but this was Black Marble team effort. If you want to try it out get the trial version from the marketplace

May 5, 2011 · 1 min · Richard Fennell

Free webcast of Architecture and Installation of TFS 2010

Are you unsure how TFS 2010 hangs together or what is entailed in installing it? Well never fear, Microsoft are hosting a webcast on the 12th May that will be given by Black Marble’s own Robert Hancock one of our ALM consultants, which will explain all. To register check the Microsoft events site

May 5, 2011 · 1 min · Richard Fennell

Registration open for the “Connected Development” event on the 26th of May

There are still space on the “Connected Development” event, a free event hosted by Black Marble and supported by Microsoft TechDays, on the 26th of May. I am one of a number of speakers from Microsoft and Gold ALM Partners who will be talking about the latest news and announcements for Application Lifecycle Management and Developing for the Microsoft Platform. Full details about the event can be found at Microsoft Events. ...

May 5, 2011 · 1 min · Richard Fennell

Creating a TFS Team Project Collection using Powershell

Grant Holiday posted on how to create a TPC using Powershell. However his post did not address how to set the SharePoint or Reporting Services parameters. His example used for the form Dictionary<string, string> servicingTokens = new Dictionary<string, string>(); servicingTokens.Add(“SharePointAction”, “None”); // don’t configure sharepoint servicingTokens.Add(“ReportingAction”, “None”); // don’t configure reporting services So not much use if like ourselves you have your TFS integrated with the company wide SharePoint farm ...

May 5, 2011 · 4 min · Richard Fennell

Problems and workaround for the EMC Scrum for Team System Process Template

I have recently been looking at the EMC Scrum for Team Systems (SFTS) 3 Template for TFS 2010 with SharePoint 2010. The core of it works, and works well for Scrum based teams. If you have not used it before have a read of the getting started post to get a feel of what it can do. However, there are some issues when you try to make use of SharePoint 2010 as opposed to SharePoint 2007. Hopefully you will find some of the adventures I have had enlightening ...

May 4, 2011 · 8 min · Richard Fennell

Problems and workaround for the EMC Scrum for Team System Process Template

I have recently been looking at the EMC Scrum for Team Systems (SFTS) 3 Template for TFS 2010 with SharePoint 2010. The core of it works, and works well for Scrum based teams. If you have not used it before have a read of the getting started post to get a feel of what it can do. However, there are some issues when you try to make use of SharePoint 2010 as opposed to SharePoint 2007. Hopefully you will find some of the adventures I have had enlightening ...

May 4, 2011 · 8 min · Richard Fennell