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Team System FAQ

This FAQ section contains questions about Team System and the Scrum plugin. For general questions about Team System, see the Microsoft FAQs.

Team System, Team Suite, Team Edition, Team Explorer…I’m confused. Can you explain?

Team System is the overall name for a number of Microsoft products:

  • Team Foundation Server (TFS) is the server component that underpins it all, hosted by SQL Server 2005, SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services, IIS 6 and Sharepoint.
  • Team Explorer is the client-side component that comes with TFS. It may be used stand-alone or within Visual Studio 2005.
  • Team Edition is a high-end version of Visual Studio 2005 combined with MSDN Premium. It includes Team Explorer, and comes in four flavours: TE for Architects, TE for Developers, TE for Testers, and TE for Database Professionals.
  • Team Suite is the four versions of Team Edition rolled into one.

There are other products: Team Foundation Server Proxy is a version of TFS for distributed teams; Team Load Test Agent is for stress testing.
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Team Edition and Team Suite are very expensive: all I want is an easy way to do Scrum and track bugs. Is there a cheaper way?

If you don’t need the high-end facilities that Team Suite and Team Edition provide, all you need is TFS on your server and a copy of Team Explorer on each client.

The standard TFS product comes with a licence to install one copy of Team Explorer. The workgroup version has 5 licences. For further licences, see the Microsoft FAQ. Scrum for Team System is free, of course, and integrates with TFS and Team Explorer.

However, if you normally license MSDN for your team members then Team Edition is less expensive than it seems as it includes MSDN Premium.
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I want to upgrade to the latest Scrum plugin - do I have to uninstall the current version?

Yes. To do so, run the installer that came with the current version and choose the Remove option (you can also do this via Add/Remove Programs in Control Panel). Then use the new installer to install the latest version.
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Will my existing project still work?

Your existing project will continue to work using the original version: each project uses the version of the Process Template that was used to create it. To use the new version of the plugin, you need to create a new project and copy the data over.
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Is there an easy way to copy data into a new project?

Since v1.1 of Scrum for Team System, a Migration Utility has been provided to allow easy migration of data from v1.0 projects.

However, in order to copy data from a project created using the Beta plugin, you need to use the Excel method described below.
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How do I use Excel to copy data into a new project?

You can use Excel to copy your data into a new project, but any history will be lost in the process. The notes below describe how to copy Sprint Backlog Item records. You will need to do the same thing for Product Backlog Items and Sprints.

  • In the old project, go to Work Items-Team Queries and right-click on All Sprint Backlog Items. Choose Open in Microsoft Excel.
  • From the Excel toolbar, select Choose Columns and then Add Required
  • Select all the data (including all the columns) and then choose
    Edit-Copy (or press Ctrl-C)
  • In the new project, open All Sprint Backlog Items in Excel as above.
  • Select the first data cell (cell A3), then choose Edit-Paste (or press
    Ctrl-V)
  • If you were to press Publish at this point, you would find that only those SBIs in a Not Done state are copied over. This is because Team System will not add SBIs that have not passed through an initial Not Done state.
  • Change all the cells in the State column to Not Done: you can use
    Edit-Fill Down (or press Ctrl-D)
  • Change all the cells in the Reason column to New
  • Use the Publish button to copy the data into Team System
  • Now go back to the first copy of Excel and copy all the data from the State, Iteration Path and Reason columns
  • Select the same data in the 2nd copy of Excel and paste the data in.
  • Change any State cells containing Done or Deferred to In Progress. Change the corresponding Reason cells too
  • Use the Publish button again
  • Cut and paste the State, Iteration Path and Reason columns again
  • Use the Publish button once more
  • Close the copies of Excel and restart Visual Studio to see the data in its new home

As an alternative to doing this process three times (once for each Work Item type), you could create a new query to return All Work Items. You can create this by right-clicking on the All Sprint Backlog Items report, and choosing View Query. Delete the clause that selects only SBIs, and save as a new query.
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Can I move my source control data to the new project?

No. The original changesets remain with the old project. You are effectively starting again with the new project.
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I want to use descriptive names for my Bug Severity codes - how do I do this?

There is guidance here.
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How can I change the State names, or relax the transition rules?

Firstly, read the guidance on changing the Bug Severity codes as the controlling XML is in the same file. Directly below the Severity codes is an XML tag Workflow, which contains States and Transitions. You can add, remove and rename the States and alter the Transitions to relax or extend the rules. Ensure that the state names match the names in the Transitions section: if you make a mistake, you probably will not know until the Project Creation wizard fails.
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How can I migrate my data from an MSF project to Scrum?

Conchango is currently investigating ways to assist with migration. Let us know if you are interested and we'll keep you posted.
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The data returned by the Queries and Reports do not match. Why?

The Queries work against the WorkItemTracking database, whereas the Reports work against the Warehouse database. It is normal practice for reporting to be done against a separate database so that time-consuming queries do not degrade response time on the main database. In this case, the Warehouse only updates itself with new changes every 30 minutes, so there is a time lag. If you happen to run a report during a lengthy update, you may see some updates whilst others are missing.
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How do I get the Warehouse to update itself?

Open a copy of Internet Explorer on the TFS server and navigate to
http://localhost:8080/Warehouse/v1.0/warehousecontroller.asmx

This will show you a menu of the methods provided by the Warehouse Controller web service. Choose the Run method and press the Invoke button. Two lines of XML are returned: if the <boolean> tag's content is true, the Warehouse is in the process of updating itself.

To find out when it has finished, go back to the menu and choose the GetWarehouseStatus method, then Invoke. The status code goes through the following cycle:

  • Running Adapters
  • Processing Olap
  • Running Adapters
  • Processing Olap
  • Idle

The first two steps may be very quick. Step 3 takes the longest. When the Idle state is reached, the Warehouse update is complete.

If the status goes to Idle suspiciously quickly, it may be that the update failed. You can check the Event Log to find out why.
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