Creating a New Team Project


Creating a Team Project is a very important step in utilizing Team Foundation Server. Almost everything the team does will be done within the constraint of the Team Project.

To make the products as easy to use as possible, Microsoft, with Team System and Team Foundation Server, has provided a variety of wizards to help speed up common tasks. With the New Team Project Wizard and an available process template, you can quickly and easily create a Team Project. Once the Team Project has been created, you can use Team Explorer to access the Team Project and make changes to the Team Project as it evolves.

To create a new Team Project, you must have the Team Foundation Server Create New Projects permission. Without this permission, you can't even run the New Team Project Wizard. See Chapter 4 for more information on how to set this and other Team Foundation Server permissions.

Finally, this is one of the few areas of Team Foundation Server where you cannot implement the same process via command-line tools. The process of creating a Team Project behind the scenes is rather involved. Thus, the only way to create a Team Project is via the New Team Project Wizard. You cannot use the command-line tools to create a new Team Project.

To start the New Team Project Wizard, first open Visual Studio 2005. From the File menu, select NewTeam Project. Optionally, using Team Explorer, you can right-click the Team Foundation Server listed in Team Explorer, and select New Team Project from the context menu.

The New Team Project Wizard walks you through several pages of steps to create a new Team Project. The exact number of steps depends on the process template you select during project creation. In the following sections, you will be creating a Team Project based off the MSF Agile process, which ships with Visual Studio Team System.

Specifying your Team Project Settings

Figure 7-1 shows the first page of the wizard, the Specify the Team Project Settings page.

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Figure 7-1

On this page, you enter the name of the Team Project. The name you pick for your Team Project should be one that other members of your team will easily recognize and understand. This name will be how others on your team find and access the Team Project.

Once you have entered the project name, click Next to move to the next step of the wizard.

Specifying a Process Template

The next page of the wizard is the Specify a Process Template page, as shown in Figure 7-2.

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Figure 7-2

On this page, you select the process template you want to associate with this Team Project. Every Team Project you create must be built using a process template. The process template defines the key pieces of the Team Project, including work item types, reports, and queries, among other information. You can think of the process template as the skeleton of your Team Project.

Visual Studio Team System comes with two process templates: Microsoft Solution Framework (MSF) for Agile Software Development, also known as MSF Agile, and Microsoft Solution Framework for CMMI Process Improvement, also known as MSF CMMI. You can use either of these templates or you can develop your own process template and load it onto the Team Foundation Server for use during project creation. Third-party templates are also available for purchase or download.

When you select a process template from the drop-down list box, you can see a detailed description of the template in the process template summary area. Once you have selected the process template you want to use, click Next.

Specifying the Project Portal Settings

Figure 7-3 shows the next step in the wizard, specifying the settings for the project portal.

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Figure 7-3

Every Team Project created on Team Foundation Server has its own Web site, called the project portal. This site, based on Windows SharePoint Services, provides access via a Web browser to project-related documents and information. It is a great way for all stakeholders in the project to stay on top of project information and progress.

The Team Project portal title defaults to the name of the Team Project. However, you can change the title to be anything you would like. Just make sure the title, if different from the Team Project, is descriptive enough to be identified by other Team Project members.

The Team Project portal description contains, as you would think, a description of the Team Project. This description is displayed on the project portal Web site. While this description is optional, you should go ahead and add one to provide more information to your project members.

The Team Project portal address field is not editable. This is the Web address of your project portal for this Team Project. The makeup of the address is as follows:

  • /sites/">http://<TeamFoundationServerName>/sites/<TeamProjectPortalTitle>

Once you have entered the portal title and optional description, click Next to move to the next step of the wizard.

Specifying the Version Control Settings

The next step of the wizard, Specify Version Control Settings, is shown in Figure 7-4.

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Figure 7-4

You have three different options for specifying the version control settings. The first is Create an empty version control folder. Selecting this radio button creates a folder off the root of the version control system with the same name as your Team Project name. Alternatively you can choose Create a new version control branch and then use the drop-down list box to specify which folder in the version control system to branch from. Chapter 12 has more details on branching. Finally, you can choose Do not create a version control folder at this time. Choosing this option does not connect your team project to the version control system. You will manually have to do this at a later point, using Team Explorer.

Once you have selected your option for version control, click the Next button.

Confirming the Team Project Settings

Figure 7-5 contains the next step of the wizard, the Confirm Team Project Settings page.

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Figure 7-5

On this page, you can review all the options you have selected over the previous pages of the wizard. If you find something incorrect, or change your mind about a particular option, you can click Previous to return to the appropriate step of the wizard and make corrections.

If the information is correct, and you are ready to proceed with the creation of the project, click Finish. This begins the creation of the Team Project. The Team Project Creation Status Window opens, containing a status bar. This window shows you how long you have remaining in the project creation process. It also informs you of where you are in the creation process.

Important

It may take several minutes for the project creation process to complete. Be patient!

During the project creation process, the wizard is using the information you entered, as well as the details from the process template, to create and configure the Team Project. If the wizard encounters an error while creating the Team Project, the error message will be displayed on the screen, and you will be prompted to take the appropriate steps to fix the error.

If the wizard completed successfully, then the Team Project Created page of the wizard opens.

Completing the Team Project

Figure 7-6 shows the final step of the New Team Project Wizard, the Team Project Created page.

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Figure 7-6

This page informs you that your Team Project was created successfully. As well, it presents you with a link and a checkbox option.

The link allows you to view the project creation log file. As you would expect, every step of the creation process is logged. This should make troubleshooting any problems easier. This log is located at C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Local Settings\Temp\VSTS_TeamProjectCreation_YYYY-MM-DD_HH.MM.SS.log. Figure 7-7 shows part of the log from a successfully created Team Project.

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Figure 7-7

As you can see, this log file is not the most readable item. Should you encounter an issue with your project creation that you cannot troubleshoot, hang on to the log file, and head over to the MSDN Forums at http://msdn.microsoft.com/forums. Posting a question there, along with the part of your log file containing the errors, may result in some quick help for you.

The second option is to view the Process Guidance page of the process template you selected when you created your team project. The Process Guidance page is an overview of the process template and how to use it. It describes the different work items associated with the template, the roles of the different team members, and how team members interact, among other things. If you do not know anything about the process model you selected, this is a great place to start learning. Figure 7-8 shows the main page of the MSF Agile Process Guidance information.

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Figure 7-8

To exit the New Team Project wizard at this point, simply click Close.



Professional Team Foundation Server
Professional Team Foundation Server
ISBN: 0471919306
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2004
Pages: 168

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