Configuring the TFS Connection

While configuring a proof of concept environment to demonstrate the TFS-Project Server integration the other day, I decided to take notes of my observations.  Those notes became a blog post – which you are now reading.  I am not sure exactly what the narrative is here, so for now, I guess we’ll just classify this under “Random Musings on the TFS-Project Server Integration Pack.”

First off, when creating a new PWA environment, I noticed that the process of mapping that PWA instance to TFS introduced six new Enterprise Custom Fields (ECF):

It would probably behoove an administrator to add these six fields to an enterprise view within the eGlobal. (hint, hint)

I also noticed that the mapping process created a couple of lookup tables.

I looked through those lookup tables, and they appeared to hold specific values used for the custom fields.  Nothing of too much interest.

After mapping the PWA instance to a new TFS collection, I went to upload the default field mapping.  Interestingly enough, the upload process kept failing with an error message of:

TFS 294026: The following work item field does not exist: Microsoft.VSTS.Scheduling.CompletedWork.  Contact your administrator for Team Foundation Server to add this work item field.

Once I actually created a team project within the TFS Collection, that error went away.  Moral of the story: ensure that you have at least one team project before uploading the default field set.  My guess is that this will only be an issue in demo environments as any existing environment would already have a team project created.

A couple of other things to note:

• Mapping work item types will set the task to Fixed Work in Project unless that is overridden in the original mapping process.  This is actually pretty key, and worth noting.
• If Team Explorer is open when the project is mapped to the team project, you’ll have to close Team Explorer before the Project Server tab will appear on the mapped work items.

The overall synopsis: developing the POC environment really wasn’t very hard at all, and although I ran into a couple of hiccups, they were mostly based on my own lack of familiarity with TFS and TFS terminology than anything technical.  So far, I am pretty pleased with the integration.