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.

Creating and Managing Release Plans with TFS

  1. Describe the work item request in an email
  2. Use TeamLook to assign the email as a work item
  3. Manage any attachments
  4. Triage the work item
  5. Managing incoming requests
  6. Linking Work Items
  7. Completing a work item

  1. 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.

    Confirming requirement with email
    Figure: Confirming the requirement by sending an email to yourself

  2. 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.

    Converting email to TFS with TeamLook
    Figure: Select create work item and select task for a new feature request

  3. 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.

    Attachments to Add to Work Item
    Figure: Select 'Do not copy any attachments'

  4. 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.

    Assign the converted task to an interation
    Figure: Triage the work item, assigning the task to an iteration

  5. 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
      Close work items with actual hours spent.
      Figure: Work Item is re-opened and email added to attachments

  6. 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.

    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.
    Add link between work items
    Figure: Add the link between the two work items, you will be prompted for search options to locate the related item
    Locate Work Item
    Figure: Locate original work item from your work items list
    Locate Work Item
    Figure: Link has been added and you can save the new work item

  7. Completing a work item

    1. When the work item is completed opens up the work item and opens the original attachment email and click "reply to all"

      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.
      Open original email from work items
      Figure: Open work item and select file attachments and open the original email request
    2. Select 'reply to all' and create a 'done' email
      Explain what you did.
      Figure: Reply 'done' to all
    3. Save "done" email as msg file to a local folder
      Save email as msg file
      Figure: Save 'done' email as msg file to a local folder
      Attach done email into the work item
      Figure: Attach 'done' email back against the work item
    4. Change the status of the work item and update the hours worked
      Close work items with actual hours spent.
      Figure: Change Status to 'Closed', add hours to worked completed and change remaining hours to 0

    8. Links

    Acknowledgments

    Adam Cogan
    Justin King
    Mark Liu