At SSW we advocate using the rich features of email to describe work items. As Team Foundation Server (TFS) does not support this
implicitly, we use the best available 3rd party solution called
TeamLook from Personify Design.
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Describe the work item request in an email
The required work item (bug request, new feature or change) should be described in sufficient detail in the body of an email and
emailed according to the projects work item communication standard. It is preferred that the email not include any attachments.
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Figure: Confirming the requirement by sending an email to yourself
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Use TeamLook to assign the email as a work item
The team member managing work item requests opens the email and assigns the email as work item using the TeamLook COM add-in.
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Figure: Select create work item and select task for a new feature request
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Manage any attachments
In the event that the email includes important attachments the preference is to resend the whole email again with the contents of
the attachment pasted into the email body and re-do step 2.
Place any other related attachments with the project files in source control.
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Figure: Select 'Do not copy any attachments'
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Triage the work item
Triage the work item by adding it to an iteration. Note the original email has been added to the work item. Save the work item
and it will be created in TFS.
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Figure: Triage the work item, assigning the task to an iteration
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Manage incoming requests
- If the request is related to another work item or is a duplicate request, create a link to the other work item
- If the request is a bug from a closed work item that needs to be re-opened
- Figure: Work Item is re-opened and email added to attachments
Linking Work Items
If a work item is related to another work item or is a duplicate request, create a link between the work items.
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In the next version of Visual Studio Team System 2008 there is a feature of hierarchy tables that may allow better management of related work items and multiple change requests on the same work item.
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Figure: Add the link between the two work items, you will be prompted for search options to locate the related item
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Figure: Locate original work item from your work items list
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Figure: Link has been added and you can save the new work item
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Completing a work item
- When the work item is completed opens up the work item and opens the original attachment email and click "reply
to all"
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A Feature request for TFS would be to have a 'Reply to All' option on the File Attachments dialog (see figure below), this would open a new email with the original message. Once this message has been sent it then should add the file to the file attachments for the work item.
At this stage this is the way to do it manually.
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Figure: Open work item and select file attachments and open the original email request
- Select 'reply to all' and create a 'done' email
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Figure: Reply 'done' to all
- Save "done" email as msg file to a local folder
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Figure: Save 'done' email as msg file to a local folder
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Figure: Attach 'done' email back against the work item
- Change the status of the work item and update the hours worked
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Figure: Change Status to 'Closed', add hours to worked completed and change remaining hours to 0
Links
Acknowledgments
Adam Cogan
Justin King
Mark Liu