VSTS Extensions - Requirements Integrator

In his presentation at Microsoft's Connect(); event, Brian Harry revealed the new VS Marketplace, where a wide variety of VSTS (the ALM tool formerly known as VSO) extensions are available for download.  I was fortunate enough to participate in dogfooding the extensibility model for VSTS, and my extension is now available on the Marketplace.
The Requirements Integrator extension is meant to bridge the gap between external requirements management systems and VSTS for Agile and Scrum projects.  Since CMMI already has the notion of requirements, I didn't see the inherent value in allowing my extension to import requirements into that type of project.  Having worked with external systems that manage business requirements as well as systems that manage the SDLC process, I could see where a tool that enabled traceability between requirements and Epics, Features, PBIs and Tasks might come in handy.
For now, import functionality is limited to MS Excel.  The plan is to expand that to encompass products like HP ALM, Sparx Enterprise Architect, and others.  Please feel free to visit the main page for the extension's repo on GitHub to see roadmap items, log issues, or create pull requests of your own.  Candid feedback is always welcome!

Apache Cordova Demo is LIVE!

Yesterday I was fortunate enough to have my Apache Cordova demo go live on the main Channel9 website.  The demo covers setting up builds on all major operating systems so that when you commit a change, it builds on all OSes simultaneously. In addition, I sat in (virtually) with Anisha Pindoria from the ALM Rangers to discuss sprint 83 highlights, my demo and other get-to-know-you type questions.
To find the S83 review, use this link.
To find the Apache Cordova demo video, use this link.
Candid feedback is welcome!  Please leave comments here or on the respective Channel9 pages.

TFS Build vNext: Mind Your P's and Q's

With the recent movement of the new TFS Team Build (also known as Build.vNext) into public preview, a lot of excitement is building in the ALM community about the features, ease of use and improved experience that the new build system is bringing.  There are blog posts and articles starting to surface about how to set up agents and builds, deploy applications to Azure and set up continuous integration and continuous delivery pipelines.
This is not one of those posts.
Instead, I want to focus on one of the behind-the-scenes features that make vNext tick.  Specifically, I’m talking about minding your P’s (agent pools) and Q’s (agent queues).  Queues are what process incoming messages (triggers) for build requests, and pools are collections of build agents that are available to process the requests coming in from the queue.
There isn’t any official guidance from Microsoft on how queues and pools should be established.  That’s not to say there should be, per se: the queue/pool setup is pretty straightforward and maintains a 1:1 relationship.  That being said, it may behoove you to set up separate queues in certain situations.  For example, you may want to create queues per application to funnel triggers toward a specific pool of agents for development teams or products.  You might also want to split up queues by operating system, in the event you are building apps with cross platform capabilities, and require the native OS components to build them.  In my walkthrough “Building Cross Platform Apps with Apache Cordova and Build.vNext“, I decided to use the OS approach to illustrate how multiple queues would work, as well as helping to isolate the OS-specific functions needed to complete the tutorial.  
Does that mean you have to do that?  Nope.  In fact, for a lot of situations you could just stick with the default queue/agent pool setup and allow the build agents to be selected based on the requirements laid out in the Demands section:

The demands listed (such as visualstudio, vstest, and java) will route the build to any agents that are online and able to satisfy those demands.  There are other settings that also factor into what agent is selected, but the easiest way to control what build goes where is to set up the demands section to have specific needs that match up with agents you have in your build ecosystem.

TFS Storyboarding: Give your Vision a Visual!

While the concept of storyboarding has been around for quite some time, it’s not entirely clear that the practice outweighs the theory when it comes to usage in the field. In addition, some tools can be costly and may not be able to integrate well with your SDLC. One tool that is free of charge, and integrates nicely into an existing SDLC with a minimal learning curve, is the TFS storyboarding add-in for PowerPoint.
The add-in allows you to leverage PowerPoint to put together a step-by-step flow of your concept that is easy to understand and gives developers and other technical colleagues a reference point when reviewing PBIs. Having that visual helps quite a bit when you are trying to establish work items to go along with those PBIs, and gives all parties involved a better sense of security that requirements are being properly conveyed to the team whose responsibility it is to bring them to life.  While not true of every organization, many companies do have Office 2007 or greater, which is half the battle.  In order to install and use the TFS storyboarding add-in you must also have a copy of Visual Studio Premium, Ultimate or Test Professional (2012 and 2013 are supported currently).
You do not need to have TFS in order to use this add-in.  It relies more on Visual Studio than it does TFS or Visual Studio Online.  You can launch storyboarding from both of these platforms, though, which is convenient.  You can also link a storyboard directly to a TFS work item.  A great overview of how to use the add-in can be found on the Microsoft Developer Network’s site.  One of the key features of this add-in is the ability to create, import and export custom storyboarding shapes.  These can be anything from your company logo to screen mock-ups that are specific to internal applications you work with to icons and device types.  There are some great community-backed shapes posted in the Visual Studio Gallery, including iPad/iPhone shapes, Windows 8 shapes and even a nifty branching and merging shape which could be used to storyboard existing or new branching/merging strategies for your code base.  You can also find some re-sizable storyboard shapes in the Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2013 Power Tools extension.
Despite there being a slight learning curve on using the add-in and getting storyboarding started for your team, I guarantee that once you do, figuring out what the customer wants will no longer be a gamble and will more likely be a sure bet.

A Call to Action: Feedback Needed!

One of the best parts of being involved in the Visual Studio ALM Rangers is giving (and receiving) feedback from the field in relation to solutions that have been released, are in flight, or are mere glimmers waiting to be started.  Yet another is being able to reach out to other colleagues to request the same level of feedback!
Please see the links below, which are chock full of great content.  Your feedback, ratings and general enthusiasm around these and other Rangers projects help to keep the community going and gives those of us working on these solutions some great ways to make things better for everyone.
Here are the latest Channel 9 videos:
• Extracting Effective Permissions from TFS
• Monthly Catch-up: S77
Here are the latest announcements:
• Extracting effective permissions and Security Auditing for TFS
• Understanding migrations from on-premises TFS to Visual Studio Online
• Git support included with the extracting effective permissions sample and research completed
• Understanding TFS migrations from on-premises to Visual Studio Online – Part 2: Walkthrough
Feedback for any of the aforementioned items can be left directly on the video or blog pages.  Questions?  Feel free to reach out to me directly.  Suggestions for gap-fillers?  Please submit them via the Visual Studio page on UserVoice!

Migrating TFS to VSO: A Whitepaper Walkthrough

Recently I was fortunate enough to work with some fellow Visual Studio ALM Rangers on a whitepaper detailing the migration of an on-premises Team Foundation Server (TFS) instance to Visual Studio Online (VSO). It’s a good read and the team did a great job putting the narrative together so that it’s easy to follow along. Check it out here: TFS to VSO Migration Walkthrough
Candid feedback is welcome!

Making the Case for Visual Studio Online

Recently I posed a question to our application development team related to switching from our current on-prem TFS instance to using Visual Studio Online.  In making my case for using VSO, I brought up the following points:

• Feature previews and reduced maintenance. When new features are available for Team Foundation Service or VSO, they are enabled in the VSO portal at no charge. In addition, patches and upgrades are automatically applied, so your days of hoping that installing that service pack didn’t hose up anything are long gone.
• Easy to use interface.  The VSO dashboard gives you a nice overview per collection and per project, making it easy to see build metrics, task boards and other collaborative features.  Many of the same conventions that you find in the TFS source explorer can be found in a clean web-based interface.
• Free version.  VSO is free to use for teams of up to five developers.  Additional stakeholders (read-only users) can be added at no charge.  Any MSDN subscription holders can also be added to VSO at no charge, which may come in handy should you need to keep extra “free” user slots open.
• Solid SLAs.  The current SLA for VSO is 99.9% uptime.
• Tie-in to Azure.  VSO is an option that can be linked into your Azure account, which makes it possible to use other services (i.e. Application Insights, VMs) in conjunction with code.  These services do cost more.
• Free build time and load testing.  Even with the free version, you are allowed 60 minutes of build time per account, along with 15,000 virtual user minutes for cloud-based load testing.  While the build allowance might keep you from doing CI-type builds (build on each check-in) for high-intensity projects, the load testing feature is definitely adequate for experimenting with an application’s ability to scale and perform under pressure.  Ex: If your load test consists of 250 concurrent virtual users, you will be able to run this test for a total of 60 minutes per month.
• Access anywhere.  This one’s more obvious, but with VSO you can access code from anywhere, where the on-premises TFS usually requires you to be VPN’d into an internal network.

A colleague, rightfully so, brought up concerns around security.  After reaching out to some resources in the ALM community, I was presented with some great information to speak to security measures.  Some great points to consider include:

•  Simply put, VSO is TFS running in Azure.  Any security certifications that apply to Azure also apply to VSO.
• Azure currently has ten independent security certifications, including HIPAA, PCI and FERPA.  You can read more about those certifications at http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/support/trust-center/compliance/.
• User security can be managed by Azure Active Directory.  In addition, your company’s AD entries can be synchronized with Azure AD, making adding and removing access much more streamlined.
• Microsoft currently uses VSO for both Visual Studio and Team Foundation Server products.

I hope you find this information useful in deciding whether VSO might be a fit for your team.  Special thanks to Esteban Garcia, fellow ALM Ranger and ALM MVP, for his help around those security questions!