Shai Raiten's Blog : Reports

The Git Hole

shair — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:31:00 GMT

I consider myself a calm person with plenty of tolerance, I believe in productive discussion and love it – Part of my job as a consultant is to talk with Teams and explain them why you should choose a specific product over another, in 99.9% of those meetings there is one guy that don’t like the change (No One Like Changes) and you need in a calm way to explain and show him the benefits of the new tool – Forcing someone to do something is never a good thing.

But sometimes there is no wining side in a discussion, you might say discussion are not about winning is about Accepting and Understanding, but Imagine yourself this scenario - You are a religious man, how about a discussion with a non-religious about “Does God Exists”?

You can throw billion argumentation's but nothing will matter because in this discussion there is not Logic but Faith and Emotions, so you can spend hours but in the end the non-religious will not believe and the religious will.

Even when you talk about Technology there is emotions if you like it or not – If you not believe me you should read some theory's from Lawrence Kohlberg, Carol Gilligan and Sub Judice , (Latin for "under judgment"), I hope in this discussion you’ll understand you are not the first and for sure not the last how think he can control his emotions when you make a choice.

So why I told you all about that? Lately I’ve being asked about why TFS and Not Git?

First I think Git is a wonderful version control system and I even use it for several projects, I use SVN and several other Open Source Version Control Systems.

The reason sometimes I’m using other systems than TFS, is for specific projects:

Project I do by myself and I don’t need work assignment or project management.
Projects that doesn’t have Testers, Product Manager or anyone else besides Developers.
Projects that doesn't care about team collaboration and think that Email is a great solution for tracking the team.
Project that doesn't have the money to buy TFS (Dream Spark)

The question itself implies that the person didn’t understand what is TFS, and just think about saving his praised code.

Team Foundation Server – This is a suite of development tools all within a single platform
The idea of one platform for the entire team is brilliant. Microsoft created tools for each individual position on the team; there are tools for Requirements Management, design tools for Architects, Developer tools and of course testing tools ranging from manual test to automation and load testing. All is this is now under one platform. When the entire team works on the same platform the collaboration and integration become easy and fluent, collecting data to generate reports no longer needs to take a lot of time. The team’s efforts are now integrated as part of the platform. Synchronizing between different tools is no longer necessary because all are working together in one place.

So after I explain what is TFS the person told me –> but TFS doesn’t have distributed version control.

SO WHAT? Git doesn’t have Bug Management, Load Testing, UML Designer, Build Machine and a lot more. It’s not all about Code!

So developers think that everything about the Product is up to them – and they are wrong! the product is something that everyone is part of, the Project Manager, the Business Analysis, the Developers, Tester and more.

Sometimes one less feature is best for the Team than one extra feature just for you!

Now, let’s go back to the discussion, even after I explain TFS the person still want Git (although his company bought TFS) and in that point I understand that this is the same discussion as “Does God Exists” because the person has HMS (Hate Microsoft Syndrome) and this is what he believes.

Is there a cure? I really don’t know. But I do know that Emotions overcome common sense and facts.

I Love Microsoft and I really Love TFS, but TFS is not the only tool at the market today that gives teams the ability to work together under a single platform, there is IBM Jazz or HP ALM Solution, but with not doubt TFS is mature and most popular ALM tool today and I will continue recommend TFS and I’ll not surrender the HMS!!!

God, give me the strength to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
and the Wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.

Thanks

Administrative Report Pack for Team Foundation Server 2010

shair — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 12:50:01 GMT

Administrative Report Pack for Team Foundation Server 2010

Couple of days ago Grant Holliday's post about new Reports pack for TFS admins to answer the following question:

How long is cube processing taking?
How much time elapses between processing jobs?
How often do the processing jobs run?
Do errors occur with when the cube is processed?

Process Times:

Current Processing Status

This table tells you whether the warehouse is currently being processed or when it will be processed next.

The Next Run Time is in local time, and Run time is the duration of the job that is currently running.

Warehouse Job Status

This table lists all team project collections and all Data Adapter Jobs and displays how long ago the Warehouse and Cube data were updated. In addition, the table will show the schema conflicts and other Data Adapter errors that caused data to be out of date:

Requirements

SQL Server Reporting Services 2008 or 2008 R2
A shared datasource to which you connect the report, as the installation instructions describe how to configure.

Download: AdminReportPack.zip

Enjoy

Create OLAP Failed – XML parsing failed at line 1, column 0: A document must contain exactly one root element.

shair — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 16:52:01 GMT

Create OLAP Failed – XML parsing failed at line 1, column 0: A document must contain exactly one root element.

I’ve visit one of my customers and saw a strange error in the event log:

Errors in the metadata manager. An error occurred when instantiating a metadata object from the file, '\\?\C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.2\OLAP\Data\TfsWarehouse.0.db\Today.886.dim.xml'.

Detailed Message: Create OLAP failed
Exception Message: XML parsing failed at line 1, column 0: A document must contain exactly one root element.

Errors in the metadata manager. An error occurred when instantiating a metadata object from the file, '\\?\C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.2\OLAP\Data\TfsWarehouse.0.db\Today.886.dim.xml'.
Errors in the metadata manager. An error occurred when instantiating a metadata object from the file, '\\?\C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.2\OLAP\Data\TfsWarehouse.0.db\Today.886.dim.xml'.
(type OperationException)

I tried to process the the cube using SQL Management Studio and everything end just fine.

Solution:

First thing is to try setting OLAP for full processing instead of incremental processing following those actions:

1. Open Web.config in C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Team Foundation Server\Web Services\Warehouse folder.

2. Add the following “<add key=”ProcessingType” value=”Full” />” under <appSettings>.

Please also run the following commands in the AT to rebuild the warehouse relational and OLAP databases:

1. Rebuild relational database

SetupWarehouse -s <DT Server Name> -d TFSWarehouse -c warehouseschema.xml -a <Service Account> -ra <Reporting Account> -mturl <TFS URL> -rebuild -edt TfsBuild

2. Rebuild OLAP database

SetupWarehouse -o -s <DT Server Name> -d TFSWarehouse -c warehouseschema.xml -a <Service Account> -ra <Reporting Account> -mturl <TFS URL>

Hope this helped.

Some Team Foundation Server 2008 Reports give errors with SQL Server 2008

shair — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 11:58:24 GMT

Some Team Foundation Server 2008 Reports give errors with SQL Server 2008

Some reports will generate errors, when no errors occur with the same reports if used against SQL Server 2005.
Depending on the specific data available for the report, and parameters selected, you may see errors similar to the following.
You may also see some variations of these error messages, or see errors listed under a reports below when viewing other reports.
The full error information will appear only if viewing the reports directly on the SQL Reporting Services server, which is most commonly the Team Foundation Server Application Tier machine.

The error simpler to this error:

An error occurred during client rendering.
An error has occurred during report processing.
Query execution failed for dataset 'AllScenarios'. ---- < Different dataset may appears.
Query (26, 3) The set must have a single hierarchy to be used with the complement operator.

Reports from Projects Based on the "MSF for Agile Software Development - v4.2" Template

Scenario Details

Reports from Projects Based on the "MSF for CMMI Process Improvement - v4.2" Template

Issues and Blocked Work Items
Requirement Details
Requirements Test History and Overview
Triage

Reports common to both templates

Bugs by Priority
Bugs Found Without Corresponding Tests
Exit Criteria
Issues List
Load Test Summary
Quality Indicators
Related Work Items
Unplanned Work
Work Item with Tasks

Regretfully you need to contact Microsoft Customer Support Services to obtain the hotfix.

Microsoft KB - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/968905

Email Reporter: VSTS 2008 Load Test Plug-in

shair — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 02:17:33 GMT

Email Reporter: VSTS 2008 Load Test Plug-in

Microsoft’s Visual Studio Team System Test Edition provides a powerful platform to perform high volume load testing. It also provides high end flexibilities to write and utilize external plug-in for extended functionalities.

"Email Reporter: VSTS 2008 Load Test Plug-in" enables users to send the load test reports to one or more pre-configured email addresses automatically, once a VSTS Load Test is completed. This open-source load test plug-in also provides supports for customization by which you can customize the reported performance data.

You can download it from here - http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/erep

Announcing TFS Performance Report Pack

shair — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 21:41:09 GMT

Announcing TFS Performance Report Pack

Grant Holliday upload TFS Performance Reports that Microsoft use.

Quote”

We have a responsibility to ensure that the server is performing as expected and to identify any efficiencies that can be made in the server or the tools. To do this, we have created a number of reports that we use ourselves and make available to our own users.

“

The Full Article + Download

Execution Time Summary

Server Status - Source Control Request Queue

Server Status - Top Users Bypassing Proxies

Server Status - Historical Performance Trends

Server Status - Recent Performance Trends

Full Article

Failed To Create Maintenance Plan For TFS Backup

Shai Raiten — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 19:13:58 GMT

Failed To Create Maintenance Plan For TFS Backup

After installing TFS 2008 I want to create maintenance plan using SSMS to create a Backup plan
How To: Backing Up a Team Foundation Server database.

When creating new maintenance plan I got an error.

Then I saw that SQL Databases is upgraded to SP2 but not the Client Tools.

So Download SQL Server SP2 and make sure to select the right components.

After installing SP2 for the Client Tool I was able to create the maintenance plan for backup TFS Databases.

Error While Trying To Create OLAP Cube

Shai Raiten — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 18:52:59 GMT

Error While Trying To Create OLAP Cube

One of my customers failed to get up to date Reports from TFS.

Looking in one of the reports I saw that the last time the warehouse was update is Two Month Ago!

I tried to process the cube manually and this got nothing, so I checked the event log and I saw couple of errors related to the warehouse.

I tried to Rebuild the cube using SetupWarehouse.exe and get another error.
An unexpected error occurred: Some or all identity references could not be translated.

In the IIS I check TFS Application Pool and enter the right password for TfsService.

After that I search "Local Security Settings" under "User Rights Assignment" and didn't find Tfsservice in "Log on as a service".

I add TfsService to "Log on as a service" rule.

Then when trying to Rebuild the Cube I didn't get any error and the reports start working.

Hope this will help.

How To: Change Estimate/Remaining/Complete Fields Format To Days Instead Of Hours

Shai Raiten — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 18:31:36 GMT

How To: Change Estimate/Remaining/Complete Field Format To Days Instead Of Hours

I receive the following question:
How do I change the format for reporting a work: estimate/ remaining/complete - to days instead of hours???

Here is my answer for that question:

To download a mapping file

Open a Command Prompt window.
Open the folder where Visual Studio is installed (for example, drive:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9),
and in that folder, locate \Common 9.0\IDE.
The TFSFieldMapping.exe utility program is in this folder.
Download the mapping file by using the TFSFieldMapping.exe utility by typing the following at the command prompt:
TFSFieldMapping download http://TFSServerName:8080 TeamProjectName MappingFile.xml

Now open MappingFile.xml and look for CompletedWork, RemainingWork, BaselineWork.

Change the ProjectUnits to pjDay instead of pjHour.

Like This:

<Mapping WorkItemTrackingFieldReferenceName="Microsoft.VSTS.Scheduling.CompletedWork"
ProjectField="pjTaskActualWork" ProjectUnits="pjDay" />
 
<Mapping WorkItemTrackingFieldReferenceName="Microsoft.VSTS.Scheduling.RemainingWork"
ProjectField="pjTaskRemainingWork" ProjectUnits="pjDay" />
 
<Mapping WorkItemTrackingFieldReferenceName="Microsoft.VSTS.Scheduling.BaselineWork"
ProjectField="pjTaskBaselineWork" ProjectUnits="pjDay" />
 
Save MappingFile.xml.

To Upload the mapping file back to TFS

TFSFieldMapping upload http://TFSServerName:8080 TeamProjectName MappingFile.xml

Now you give your estimation in Days and Not in Hours.

But you can see that the value from Team System automatic translated into Hours in MsProject,

Change The Days to Hours Calculation

Click on Tools -> Options

Goto "Schedule" Tab and change "Work is entered in:" to Days

Here is the new View

Enjoy.

Reports Part 1 : Understanding Team System Reports

Shai Raiten — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 09:36:55 GMT

Reports Part 1 : Understanding Team System Reports

I think everyone knows that Team System can show Reports, but not everyone knows that Team System can show Reports on almost EVERYTHING you do inside Team System.

Also many people don’t understand the importance of Reporting and how using Team System Reports can help them improve the ALM process.

When I demonstrate to customers the Reports ability in Team System I get two different responses:

Customer 1: WOW!!!!

Customer 2: Why?
Here is some questions from customers:

Why should I need to see Code Churn?
PolicyOverride? Why??????????? (Usually from developers :-))
I have all this info on excel why should I move to Team System Reports?

People need very good reason to work with something new instead of something they know very well, if a customer works with excel to get Reports he need to understand that Team System can save him a lot of Time do it Better and Faster!

This is what I’m going to show and learn.

Before starting to create Team System Reports I strongly recommends to understand Team System Reports:

Understanding the Data Warehouse Architecture

Understanding the Structure of the Data Warehouse Cube

Let’s Report With Team System

Shai Raiten — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 20:40:07 GMT

Let’s Report With Team System

I started to write copule of posts and screencast about Team System Reporting.

In those posts and screencast I’ll explaine the significance and probabilitys for using Team System Reports.

Here is a glimpse:

Understanding the Data Warehouse Architecture
Understanding the TFS Cube
Creating and Customizing TFS Reports
Report Designer
Aggregate Report
Detailed Report
MDX & T-SQL
Training and Examples

Exclude File From Code Churn

Shai Raiten — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 17:57:46 GMT

Exclude File From Code Churn

If you want to exclude specific file from the code churn in TFS Reports look in Neno Loje blog.

Disadvantages:

Comparing binary files in the command line or UI will just result in "Binary files differ" rather than a diff viewer showing the changes.
By default, multiple checkouts of binary files are not allowed.

How To: Create TFS Reports Using Excel

Shai Raiten — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 08:02:28 GMT

How To: Create TFS Reports Using Excel

(PivotTable)

I have customers that from time to time need new reports for them self not for the all project, I asked them why you need me to create this king of report?

The answer is: I don't know how and it's too complicated...

My answer: No it's not!

In less then 5 min you will be able to create report like the one below that sync directly from TFS.

Let's Start

Open Excel 2007 click on Data tab and click on From Analysis Services.

Enter TFS Server name and click next

Select Team System Cube and click next.

You don't need to do anything in this form just click Finish.

Select PivotTable Report and click OK.

For Chart Report - Select PivotChart and PivotTable Report

Select a measure group such as Current Work Item, and then select a measure such as Current Work item Count.

Drag fields :

Assigned To.Person to the Row Labels box

Work Item.State to the Column Labels box.

Date.Year.Month.Date to the Report Filter box.

Filtering my report using Year and Month.

Enjoy.