Avoid the pick-n-mix branching anti-pattern
For the last few days I have been working with a customer in the UK on a grass roots engagement to help them solve their source control issues. They have ended up with a pick-n-mix branching anti-pattern and could not see the way out.
The value of an independent Scotland for me
For the last wee while some of you may have noticed some news coverage about Scottish independence. This post is about the value of an independent Scotland for me, so if you are not interested in politics then move along. It will all be over in a few months and you will likely never have to hear about it outside of history again.
Maven release prepare fails with detected changes in Jenkins
If you are using Team Explorer Everywhere 2012 or 2013 your Maven release prepare fails with detected changes, however it worked when you were using SVN. As you may have noticed I have had a few posts on Jenkins integration with TFS recently. My current customer is migrating away from SVN and Jenkins to TFS 2012 to take advantage of the cool ALM feature however we need to stage in, taking one thing at a time. They have quite a few builds in Jenkins and moving them will take time. The idea is that we can move all of the source over and it is a fairly simple process to re-point Jenkins and Maven to TFS. This allows the teams to take advantage of relating their Source and Work Item while allowing us to create parallel builds and validate the output.
Traveling for work and the Dell Venue 8
I travel a lot and I have been carting around both a Surface 2 Pro and a Surface 2 on my travels. I have been feeling recently that this was a little silly and I wanted to reduce my load and increase my flexibility. So just last week I purchased a Dell Venue 8.
How to delete work items from TFS or VSO
Have you ever created a bunch of work items that you decided later that you had to delete. Well I have… especially as a user of the TFS Integration Platform. And when things go wrong there they can really go wrong.
Run a router on Hyper-V
I want to run a router on Hyper-V so that I can run many VM’s, each with internet access, on corporate and hotel networks. Microsoft touts Routing and Remote Access but there is no way I will go there. First it’s a total pain to setup and run. Second I need to run a whole Windows Server just to have basic DHCP and internet access. Overkill much! There must be a better way.
Getting a service account for VSO with TFS Service Credential Viewer
Have you tried to get a service account for Visual Studio Online (VSO)? Did you know that you can use the TFS Service Credential Viewer to get it. When you join a local or azure build server to your VSO account you are asked to log in with an account that is an administrator to get credentials. However it cant continue to use your credentials as your Microsoft ID token expires after 2 days and you would have to login again. Not a good experience. However there is a little bit of code that the build server uses to get a basic service username and password that it uses instead. I have used this to create unit tests that hit the TFS API’s in VSO as well as do all sorts of automated tasks that I need.
TFS Process Template migration script updated
Did you know that you can quite easily to do a TFS process template migration? Did you notice I used the “quite” in there. Well if you think of the Process Template as the blueprints then the Team Project that you create is the concrete instance of that blueprint.
Access denied user needs label permission in TFS
There is always something new to learn with TFS and today I learned something old. I had a user today that was constantly getting the message “Access denied user needs label permission in TFS”.
Import Excel data into TFS with History
Have you ever tried to push data into TFS with Excel? I have, and it can often be the opposite of sweetness and light. The idea is to import Excel data into TFS with History.
Mask password in Jenkins when calling TEE
When you use the release build plugin in Jenkins to create a new release the plugin inadvertently leaves your password in clear text in the log files. We need to be able to mask password in Jenkins when calling Team Explorer Everywhere (TEE) so that we meet security requirements.
Configuring Jenkins to talk to TFS 2013
I am working quite a lot with some Java teams at the moment who are using SVN and Jenkins. We are moving them over to TFS and TF Build and we wanted to make sure that we were minimally disruptive to first I need to configuring Jenkins to talk to TFS 2013.
Migrating to office 365 from Google Mail
A few months ago I decided to make use of Office 365 but I have run into a bunch of roadblocks. Migrating to office 365 from Google Mail as it seams that Office 365 and Google Mail are not the best of friends. They seam to be in a state of cold war.
Be a kid again and upgrade to Windows Phone 8.1 Developer Preview
I love new things not just because they are new but because they are exiting. Discovery is something that we lose as we get older but it should be nurtured so be a kid again and upgrade to Windows Phone 8.1.
Blogging from 2500 meters
I am currently 2k meters up the side of a mountain in the French Alps and while skiing is fun it takes its toll on my knees that are already a bit dodgy. Thus I have been Skiing in the mornings and sunning myself in the afternoons. It is about 25 degrees Celsius here during the day and tad sunny.
Using multiple email alias with your existing Microsoft ID
Did you know that you can have multiple email alias associated with an existing Microsoft ID (formally Live ID). The first thing that you should do if you receive a new email address, wither corporate or personal, is associate it with your current Microsoft ID.
Does your organisation have both Project Mangers as well as Product Owners?
This is the dysfunction of teams with Project Managers as well as Product Owners. Does your organisation have both Project Mangers as well as Product Owners? If so, to whom do your teams report? What does it depend on? Because if it does depend then you are doing a disservice to your teams and will have difficulty moving towards greater agility. I have a customer right now that has this situation with cross application teams however there are additional complications.
Professional Application Lifecycle Management with Visual Studio 2013
About 6 months ago I was approached by Mickey to help him on the third edition of Professional Application Lifecycle Management with Visual Studio 2013. I jumped at the chance, only to be in dismay at the amount of work, and now relieved that it is all over. I could not believe the amount of work that goes into producing a book of the calibre and while fun, deadlines were not…
Upgrade your server to Windows Server 2012 R2 Update 1
With the release of Windows Server 2012 R2 Update 2 I wanted to make sure that all of my demo machines are up to date. I have a Domain Controller and a TFS server that are separate boxes but which are both running Windows Server 2012 R2.
Should I upgrade to TFS 2013 Update 2?
With the launch at Build of Team Foundation Server 2013 Update 2 I wanted to make sure that the update goes seamlessly. So I am upgrading my demo box to both Windows Server 2012 R2 Update 1 and Team Foundation Server 2013 Update 2.
What my father taught me about Evidence-based Management (34 years before it was invented!)
A few weeks ago I headed out to the Scrum.org offices in Boston to participate in training to hone my skills as an Evidence-based Management Consultant. I was talking to my father about it when I got back and was surprised that he recognised many of the practices and tools.
TFS for cross team and cross business line work item tracking
I was asked by current customer to come up with a solution, within TFS, to allow an entire division to work together in delivering software for a bank. This divisions made up of over 10 teams than work on many pieces of software. Some have simple requirements while others require harsh security and compliance. This is a standard problem and not unique to this company, however the perception still prevails with both TFS users and administrators, that one must have a single Team Project for each [Project | Team | Product] under way. This perception is not only incorrect but Team Foundation Server was designed to be used differently. The Developer Division (DevDiv) at Microsoft, who built the product, uses a single 20+ terabyte Team Project for their Work Items, Source Code and Builds for over 2k people. Team Foundation Server was designed and built to be used with fewer large Team Projects rather than many small Team Projects.
Metrics that matter with evidence-based management
I was recently asked to speak at ALM Days in Dusseldorf and more specifically to create a talk on Metrics and KPI’s for Quality. As I have been working a lot recently with evidence-based management. I am pretty sure that my session title translates as “Test management and reporting – KIP’s for better decisions” so I am going to concentrate on reporting and KPI’s as the session before mine is on Agile Testing.
Team Foundation server 2013 Update 2 RC is coming, are you ready?
While naked ALM Consulting can help you install and configure TFS you may want to take advantage of the upcoming TFS Upgrade Weekend from Microsoft for free. Just as with the TFS 2013 Preview Microsoft is putting its money where its mouth is and setting up a raft of experts that will be on hand to help you upgrade to TFS 2013 Update 2 RC. They are so confident that you will not have any problems that on Friday 28th February and Saturday 1st March they will have experts standing by to support you. All they ask is that you register for the http://nkdalm.net/TFS13U2UpgradeWeekend so that they know how many folks are taking advantage… you know… just in case.
Building a release pipeline with Release Management with Visual Studio 2013
With the release of Visual Studio 2013 we now have release management built right into the product that we can use to build a scalable release pipeline. It’s not perfect but it does hit the spot.
Install Release Management 2013
Just recently I have been doing a lot of work in Release Management 2013 and noticed the lack of documentation. I have done a number of installs and documented them is posts like Installing Release Management Client for Visual Studio 2013 and Installing Release Management Server for TFS 2013 however there is always things that don’t quite join up. I often have to head off an fix problems or get support as part of my posts an while I almost always blog those issues there is no joined up experience.
Installing Release Management Server for TFS 2013
Unless you have been living under a rock you might have noticed that Microsoft has added a Release Management tool to its Visual Studio product line. I have been playing with it for a while now and I think I have it figured out. However as this is a new addition to the product it is extremely poorly documented.
Execute Tests with Release Management for Visual Studio 2013
Last week I was onsite with a customer who was trying to do automated release and test with Lab Management. I showed him a better way by execute Tests with Release Management for Visual Studio 2013.
Move your Active Directory domain to another server
I was trying to install TFS 2013 yesterday and I found that my local demo domain was not working. After a little investigation It looks like I was running Windows Server 2012 R2 Preview and it had just expired.
Installing TFS 2013 from scratch is easy
It had been a while since I installed TFS from scratch and I had a few questions from a customer on the subject. So instead of creating yet another installing TFS post I decided to create a couple of videos instead.
