Tech Ed and Team Foundation Server

I saw a couple of people from the Church at last week's Microsoft Tech Ed Conference and in particular there was one who was in a couple of the presentations done around Microsoft's ALM tool suite Team Foundation Server. That led me to wonder what the Church is using today to manage the software projects (and IT projects in general) as well as if Team Foundation Server was being considered as a potential platform.

I would be just as interested, especially as my company uses Microsoft techonologies a plenty. My particular group has been piloting the use of TFS for over a year now, and the decision to use it company-wide has been made and implemented just recently.

We have been playing with TFS internally and are debating if we should widen its use. There has been no decision yet to my knowledge.

Tom

Is it an alternative to MS Project or MS Project Server?

bhofmann wrote:Is it an alternative to MS Project or MS Project Server?

I believe that it encompasses a bunch of different technologies that we would use, including bug collaboration, version control, etc. I could be wrong as I'm not that familiar with it. We don't have a wide spread use of MS Project Server (to my knowledge or exposure).

Tom

tomw wrote:I believe that it encompasses a bunch of different technologies that we would use, including bug collaboration, version control, etc. I could be wrong as I'm not that familiar with it. We don't have a wide spread use of MS Project Server (to my knowledge or exposure).

Tom

OK, thanks. I was just curious and can go to Microsoft if I need more information. We just installed MS Project server and aren't too happy with it yet and have different solutions for issue tracking and source control.

bhofmann wrote:OK, thanks. I was just curious and can go to Microsoft if I need more information. We just installed MS Project server and aren't too happy with it yet and have different solutions for issue tracking and source control.

We used to use the bug tracking of TFS (I don't know if it is Project Server under another guise, or what...) but we have decided to switch to using a product called VersionOne for planning and bug tracking.

We are currently in the process of implementing Team Foundation Server at my company. So far, it has been a relatively frustrating experience. Customizing the Process Flow Templates is extremely tedious and time-consuming. It takes forever to compile a new template and the tools provided to edit the templates (Infopath and XML editors) are archaic and tedious.

Other than this problem, it seems that TFS will be great for our team once it is configured. I just wish Microsoft would have provided some better tools to help with the initial setup of the system.

Brad O.

brado426 wrote:We are currently in the process of implementing Team Foundation Server at my company. So far, it has been a relatively frustrating experience. Customizing the Process Flow Templates is extremely tedious and time-consuming. It takes forever to compile a new template and the tools provided to edit the templates (Infopath and XML editors) are archaic and tedious.

Other than this problem, it seems that TFS will be great for our team once it is configured. I just wish Microsoft would have provided some better tools to help with the initial setup of the system.

Brad O.

I do have to say, though, that TFS is most definitely a much needed replacement for SourceSafe.

mkmurray wrote:I do have to say, though, that TFS is most definitely a much needed replacement for SourceSafe.

Ahh sourcesafe, got the job done, just like DOS got the job done for an OS.

Have you looked at any Open Source options for this sort of thing.

Some options...

Trac - http://trac.edgewall.org/ & http://trac-hacks.org/

DotProject - http://www.dotproject.net/

at least by the dev department.