I updated Release Management and my builds fail: now what?
This is a quick but worth tip to remember. If you upgrade Release Management, you always need to update the Client. Up to this, fair...
Things to remember when you work with Azure and the new Team Build
Azure is an amazing piece of technology – its capabilities are immense and there is always something new to learn and use for solving our...
What’s happened to the Visual Studio installer?
Well, they sorted it out! The Visual Studio 2015 installer is now componentised: It is now very straightforward to understand, especially for upgrades. This is...
Endpoints in a Team Project: what shall I do with them?
If you roam around a TFS/VSTS Team Project Administration page you will surely come across the Services tab: What am I supposed to do with...
Shopping in the Marketplace with Visual Studio Team Services
With the rename, Visual Studio Online Visual Studio Team Services introduces the Marketplace for its extensions. It is a very welcome addition to the platform,...
Upgrading SonarQube to 5.2, my notes
Today I updated our production instance of SonarQube to the eagerly awaited version 5.2. It is such an important release because it finally embraces a...
Small touches I like in the TFS 2015 Update 1 Upgrade Wizard
Microsoft is always working towards improving the user experience of its products, and Team Foundation Server is no exception to this rule. There are two...
Dashboards in Team Foundation Server 2015 Update 1
Another great new feature in TFS 2015.1 is the introduction of a real dashboard instead of a pre-built welcome page. This is an example: This...
TFVC and Git in the same Team Project: a revolution
TFS 2015 Update 1 is literally hot off the press, and I am already on it as the changelog is massive! The #1 priority to...
Problem solved! Git-LFS and VSO
One of the problems you might face with Git is the performance hit when you start storing binaries into the Version Control. It is actually...
Personal Access Tokens in Visual Studio Online
When you try to access some services in Visual Studio Online, you might need to enter your Alternate Credentials. Think about Git, for example. This...
Why shall I split the columns in the Kanban Board?
A very interesting discussion came out at the SmartDevsUG meeting last night about the Kanban Split Columns in TFS and VSO. What is the real...
Reading the TFS update logs
Did you ever read a TFS update log? If not, you should do it. Once you do anything on the TFS databases, all the operations...
Draft Builds in the new Team Build
With the new Team Build you have the possibility of working on Build Definitions in an asynchronous fashion, without impacting other team members or wasting...
Quickly change the TFS Integration Platform settings
You installed the TFS Integration Platform, and now you want to move your database. Or you want to change the temporary folder used during the...
Pre-upgrading a large Team Project Collection to TFS 2015
TFS 2015 is out and we all rush upgrading our Team Project Collections! But if you have a collection bigger than 1TB you should stand...
Change the Release Management URL when the console is stuck
Quick one, but helpful IMHO. After updating Release Management Server or Client you might experience this: and then you would be stuck – you can’t...
Team Project rename: is it that easy?
Renaming a Team Project was the most asked feature for Team Foundation Server since 2005, with over six thousands votes on it. Microsoft finally delivered...
TFS and HTTP status 417
Panic today – a guy couldn’t connect to Team Foundation Server with a weird “The request failed with HTTP status 417: Expectation failed.” What did...
How to configure SCVMM-based Lab Management for selected Team Projects
Not all the Team Projects we have in the company might need to get Lab Management, and we pretty much know about the need of...
How easy is to use a Symbol Server with Team Build vNext?
Answer: it is extremely easy! A Symbol Server is a very important piece of infrastructure every development team should have. It enables someone debugging (with...
Scrum meets the pool – swimlanes in VSO’s backlog board
With the update of June 3rd VSO got a new and very useful feature in the Backlog Board: swimlanes. What does that mean? It means...
Beware of the Package Location in VSRM!
I am working on a few scenarios using VSRM and DSC, and something funny happened. Picking a build up for release, I noticed this: Localhost?...
A note on reusing your custom fields
When you customise your Work Item Types you often start with a lone custom Field, and then you forget about it for a while. But...
A design consideration: SQL Server AlwaysOn Availability Mode for TFS
There are a few bits of any Team Foundation Server deployment which are either taken for granted, or completely ignored. One of them is: Why...
A design consideration: Reporting Services on the Application Tier
There are a few bits of any Team Foundation Server deployment which are either taken for granted, or completely ignored. One of them is: Why...
TF30170 errors and the TFS Cache
Weird things happen, like this: “An item with the same key has already been added.” How?! Nothing catastrophic actually – it is just a matter...
Visual Studio ALM at //BUILD – recap
Tons of stuff at this year’s //BUILD! It was really exciting and there were a lot of news about Windows 10, Edge and the ecosystem....
SQ-TFS.Scripts, automation scripts for SonarQube and TFS
This is my second take at open-sourcing something! Yesterday I read about the fantastic joint release from Microsoft and SonarSource for an integration between SonarQube...
Remember, remember, remember…to close the TFS Administration Console!
That was fun :) While working with TFSConfig I hit this error on a TFS Farm’s Application Tier… Oh, right, I have it open. I...
How to schedule a TFS Integration Platform session
You might need to schedule your TFS Integration Platform session at a certain time, and the TFS Integration UI doesn’t expose such an information. Not...
Why ‘Doing’ and ‘Done’ in the Kanban board?
Visual Studio Online introduced this feature a few weeks ago, and then I’ve been asked… Why is the split column inside another column? That is...
Definition of Done on the Boards – how, and my thoughts on why
Last week Microsoft rolled on the latest Visual Studio Online sprint deployment, and among all the new features there is the possibility of adding a...
A lap around the new Application Insights
I really like Application Insights – it is no mystery, just look at how many posts I wrote on it – and the last time...
Why can’t I output the result of git log from a PowerShell script?
Git log is a special command, it uses a pager and it seems the PowerShell ISE hangs when you run into that kind of commands....
A first look at Team Foundation Server 2015
A few days ago Microsoft released a first CTP of Team Foundation Server 2015, together with another one for Visual Studio 2015. Whoo!I was particularly...
PowerShell DSC in legacy pipelines, or with no pipeline at all
It is true that PowerShell DSC is the newest kid on the block, but it is also true that we can integrate it in legacy...
What are .tfignore files?
I was talking with Gian Maria this morning about the need of excluding some files from the Version Control, with both TFVC and Git. With...
The hidden gem of Microsoft Test Manager: tcm.exe
Can you clone a specific Test Suite into an existing Test Plan? Not really. Shall you resort to Excel, getting – in this scenario –...
My first approach with open-source: TFSThemeUploader
To be fair, I’ve never been involved in open-source very much. I mean, personally. Moreover, I have always been quite shy of my stuff, as...
Continuous-Integration-as-Infrastructure and Git Flow
This came out at Friday’s meeting of the London ALM User Group – can I set up an infrastructure CI build for my whole Git...
Visual Studio Release Management as a Service – a quickstart
Let’s face it – cloud computing is utterly cool (pay-as-you-use service, near 100% availability, no infrastructure costs) but it is not for everyone. Even myself,...
Useful SQL queries for the TFS Administrator
Right, right – I know: I would actually replace can with will, but people might think I am too harsh. Remember – the TFS databases...
Troubleshoot a Team Project deletion
A colleague of mines once said “it’s never a stupid question if you don’t know the answer.” So that post might sound stupid, but I...
Reducing Technical Debt with Smart Unit Tests
One of the reasons behind Technical Debt is the lack of appropriate test suites around a certain feature. Especially when implementing something new, tests are...
Lab Management and Environments – what to remember
Lab Management’s SCVMM environments are nothing more than a bunch of Virtual Machines running somewhere in a datacentre. Really. I do not understand the reluctancy...
How to configure Visual Studio Team Lab Management 2013, once and for all
Every time I go at a conference/user group and Lab Management is mentioned I hear someone saying “Lab Management? I never understood how it sticks...
Why can’t I delete a Test Plan with MTM and TFS 2013 Update 3?
Do you want to delete a Test Plan from MTM? Fair enough. Unfortunately the documentation is a bit outdated here – a quick Google to...
Visual Studio Lab Management and Auto Provisioning
Despite it is very handy, the Auto Provisioning feature of Lab Management can become a trouble pretty quickly. If enabled, every Team Project will be...
Impact of the new Visual Studio Online European Region
With the latest update Microsoft addressed one of the most repeated requests about Visual Studio Online. It isn’t a specific feature or capability, but it...
Can I host multiple Git repositories in Team Foundation Server?
Of course you can! I am in the middle of a migration project, and the team I am helping with has several Git repositories (converted...
Again on the logs: are errors in the logs going to stop an upgrade?
A quick but interesting question came out this week: “if I see an error in the Event Viewer of the Application Tier, is it going...
Logs, logs, logs…
Team Foundation Server is by no means an easy product – especially with large deployments. One of the most important aids in the daily maintenance...
Hitting the limit on a Local Workspace
Everybody remember the introduction of the local workspaces in 2012, enabling offline scenarios with Team Foundation Server. But did you know they have a limit...
Application Insights: what’s going on?
I guess it has been a little overlooked, but there is a lot of moving around Application Insights…The biggest thing is that with Visual Studio...
Again, again and again on the backups
This is a topic which I find coming back every now and then: backups of the Team Foundation Server. Team Foundation Server is a SQL...
TFS Transaction Marking on SQL Server AlwaysOn Data Tier
If you need to manually backup the Team Foundation Server – you might have several reasons for not using the OOB tool – you need...
Why is my Incremental Analysis Database Sync going on forever?
Sometimes it happens... And that’s just because I stopped it. Why does it happen? The reason is pretty easy: if the job is running, but you have...
How did I learn to get on well with Git
Who knows me certainly know I am not the biggest…err…fan of Git Thanks to Gian Maria and its continuous support on it I managed to...
Can’t refresh the TfsOlapReport connection? Have a look at the Trusted Data Providers…
You open the SharePoint Dashboard and you suddenly see this error: An error occurred during an attempt to establish a connection to the external data...