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Finally, the user group has a live msn site
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This week I finally found the time (actually, it took me less than 5 minutes to open the group and create the site, which really makes we wonder why I've waited so long….) and opened the official Israeli MS ALM user group in the Microsoft live site.
The new site will contain information about the coming sessions and presentations (and code when applicable) from previous sessions and it also a platform for all Team Foundation Users in Israeli to raise subjects of interest that you would like as to arrange sessions about. This is also the place to step up and suggest the subjects for the sessions you would like to lead!
Please feel free to login and register (you can use an existing hotmail/live id or easily create a new one) : http://almug.groups.live.com/
you can find the last load session presentation in the skydrive
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ALM User Group in Microsoft – Load Session
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The May meeting on the Israeli user group focused in the fascinating world of load testing. Shai Raiten from Sela Group has completed a ‘mini series’ of lectures in the group. His last session has established the grounds by discussing web/automated testing in team system using the visual studio team edition for tester. This month session took off from where he left the last time and progressed to discuss the usage on web testing as an input to smoke/load/stress testing. you can download the full length presentations from Shai’s blog and from the user group site:
first session – web testing in team system
second session – load testing in team system
and again, thank you Shai for the super professional presentations you delivered!
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To Audit Or Not to Audit
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From the very early days of Team Foundation Server, one of it’s most significant features was, in my humble opinion, the fact that every activity is tracked and registered creating a full audit trail on the team activities. So, when users complained that they cannot delete projects or work items, I proudly explained that this is all part of the methodology and the benefits they gain from it.
And than came TFPT (I think in the Oct 2008 edition) and added that functionality. Now, armed with admin permissions, you can delete and destroy! (this is actually the command name: destroywi, destroywit) so much. For me, this is almost a blasphemy: manipulating with the audit trail is totally against all my ALM beliefs.
Anyway, progress should not be stopped because my (or others) religious believes and I will have to keep thinking about it until I come up with the right mix of auditing and editing….
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Use TFS to create feature and bugs backlogs
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Where do you usually store all the new features suggestions and enhancements people are throwing at you? If you are like most of us, some are buried in your mailbox, some are even less fortunate and are scribbled on a post-it or in an old notebook. The result is that valuable ideas are lost.
The solution I came up with is so simple it is almost embarrassing to blog about it, but since most of the TFS implementations I see lack that option I would like to share it anyway.
What I do is add a new node to the iteration path tree – I call it ‘backlog’ but ‘pool’ or ‘repository’ will work just fine
Benefits of using a pool:
for enhancements:
- nothing gets lost
- improved collaboration atmosphere – everybody can contribute their ideas. (make sure that people realize that adding a new enhancement to the pool does not mean that it will automatically will be part of the new version, this is yet the product manager and the dev manger responsibility to decide on that!)
- better planning capabilities – when planning a new version consult your team about the effort they estimate before deciding if and in which version to include it
for bugs:
- Not all bugs should be solved in the current or even next version (lets face it: some will never be solved, but this a subject for a completely different post…) – but all bugs should be documented. Use the pool collect all the helpdesk issues, tickets and bugs openned by dev and QA. Now you can sit down calmly, evalute their affect on your application (or product) and assign them to the most appropriate version.