Scrum for Team System : Scrum for Team System Version 2, SfTS V2

Task Board Report

sfts — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 11:19:00 GMT

One of our new reports within the Scrum for Team System template is the Task Board report. This report will show the current status of the work items link to the sprint.

Most of the data for this report comes from the data warehouse, however to make this report and its drilldown report useful some of data needed to come from the transaction database. The description of the work item, which used by the task board report, is long text data and is not transferred to the warehouse.

There is a scenario there the task board report could return the following error:

An error has occurred during report processing. (rsProcessingAborted)
Query execution failed for data set 'ReportData'. (rsErrorExecutingCommand)
For more information about this error navigate to the report server on the local server machine, or enable remote errors

This error occurs when the user account selected (during the initial TFS setup process) for reporting, which is different to user account for the services, does not have permission to access the tfsWorkItemTracking database.

If you run that attached template file on your TFS server it will correct the problem. The attached file will need to be opened and run within “SQL Server Management Studio” and, as it is a template file, you will need to specify some parameters. To do this use the key combination [crtl]+[shift]+[m], prior to execution.

Getting Started With Scrum for Team System Version 2

sfts — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 15:47:00 GMT

Getting started with Scrum for Team System

I’ve written the below blog post to help people new to scrum get started with the Scrum for Team System process template. It will take you through setting up a simple project, creating user stories, creating tasks and working through a sprint.

Pre-requisites:

In order to continue with this guide you will need:

A Team Foundation Server (TFS) 2008 environment (including WSS 3.0)
Installed the latest Scrum for Team System process template (at time of writing, the current version is 2.1).

Creating a new team project:

Open Team Explorer
Connect to the target TFS
Right-click on the server name (in team explorer)
Select “New Team Project” from the context menu
Enter the name of the new project. Example “MyFirstSfTSProject” *

* Note: The current version of SfTS contains a bug that stops the project portal displaying a list of reports if the project name contains spaces.
Select “Agile Software Development with Scrum- v2.1.13952.002”
Click the “Finished” button and wait for the project to be created.

Exploring the new team project:

Once the new team project is created you can use Team Explorer to traverse the new projects’ artefacts. Here are some of the things you get by default.

Work item templates:
The project provides you with work item templates so that you can create your backlog and associated tasks. The main work items are:
- Sprint:
  This work item allows you to set the sprint information.
- Product Backlog Item:
  This work item represents a user story on the product backlog.
- Bug:
  A work item that represents a bug on the backlog list.
- Sprint Backlog Item:
  This work item represents a task and should be associated to a user story (or bug). More on this below.
Project Portal:
The project portal can be accessed by right clicking on the project name in Team Explorer and selecting “Show Project Portal” from the context menu. The project portal enables you to view reports, add wiki information and set up global lists (more on this below).
Work Item Team Queries:
The default template gives you a suite of pre-defined queries to allow you to view existing work items.
Reports:
An extensive suite of reports is installed. The reports allow you to view current and historical work item data. The report suite is soon to be extended to include Build, code coverage and several other reports.
Sprints:
By default, the project will contain a collection of sprints. Sprints are built upon an iteration path in the style of “Release Number” \ “Sprint Name”. The default sprint work item objects do not have any start and end dates, so will need to be set up before we can start using them. You can view a list of the sprints by using the “All Sprints” team query.

See the following process guidance section for more information: http://scrumforteamsystem.com/processguidance/v2/Artefacts/Artefacts.as

Project initial set up:

Now that we have an empty project, we need to set up a few global parameters.

Global Lists:
The project portal allows us to define two global lists; Teams and Environments. Let’s add 2 new teams:
1. Open the project portal web site
2. Select the “Team Project Administration” tab.
3. In the text field directly below the “Team (Scrum)” text; enter “Team A”
4. Click the adjacent “Add” button.
5. Enter “Team B”
6. Click the “Add” button again.
7. Finally click the “Save Lists” button to commit your changes back to the project definition.
8. You have create a global list that contains two team names; “Team A” and “Team B”
Sprints:
In this demo project we will only need one sprint. Follow the below instructions to set up the project sprints:
1. Within Team Explorer; execute the “All Sprints” Team query.
2. Select the first sprint (iteration path: MyFirstSfTSProject\Release 1\Sprint 1).
3. Enter 200 in the “Capacity” field.
4. Enter today’s date as the “Sprint Start Date”.
5. Enter today’s date plus two weeks in the “Sprint End Date”.
6. Save the sprint work item.
7. Now set the “State” of all the other unwanted sprint items to “Deleted”.
Project Team Members:
Next up, we need to add some team members to the project:
1. Right click on the project name in Team Explorer and select: Team Project Settings / Group Membership
2. In the “Project Groups on MyFirstSfTSProject” dialog, select the “Project Administrators” groups and click the “Properties” button
3. In the “Team Foundation Server Group Properties” dialog, add some team members from active directory and click the “OK” button.
The project is now ready for the user stories.

Create the user stories:

We need to create some user stories to work on and assign them to our sprint. The following steps detail how this is accomplished:

Create a new “Product Backlog Item” (PBI). See the following process guidance section for more information on how to do this:

http://scrumforteamsystem.com/processguidance/v2/Artefacts/ProductBacklog/UsingTeamExplorerWithTheProductBacklog.aspx
In the new PBI; set the title to equal “My PBI Number 1”
Set the “Release and/or Sprint” to: “MyFirstSfTSProject\Release 1\Sprint 1”
Enter “1” for the “Estimated Effort”
Select “Team A” for the “Team”
Enter “100” for the “Business Priority”
Save the work item.
Repeat this process 3 more times, alternating the “Team” (between “Team A” and “Team B” and reducing the “Business Priority” by “10” each time.
You have now created 4 users stories, assigned 2 to each team and added them to the “Release 1\Sprint 1” sprint.

Creating the Sprint Tasks:

Next up, we need to create some sprint tasks, associate them to the user stories and assign them to the team members.

Create a new “Sprint Backlog Item” (SBI). See the following process guidance for more information:

http://scrumforteamsystem.com/processguidance/v2/Artefacts/SprintBacklog/CreatingNewSprintBacklogItems.aspx
In the SBI edit pane, set the title to “My SBI Number 1”.
Set the “Sprint” to equal “MyFirstSfTSProject\Release 1\Sprint 1”.
Set the “Estimated Hours” to equal “4”.
Select “Team A” from the “Team” dropdown list.
Select one of the Team Members (defined in the project initial set up) from the “Owned By” dropdown list.
Open the “Links” tab and click the “Add” button.
Either, enter the ID of the first PBI or click the “Browse” button to open the “Choose Related Work Item” dialog and use the “All Product Backlog Items” query to find the required PBI. (See the below notes for a
linking short cut)
Save the SBI.
Repeat this process 3 times for each of the 4 PBIs previously created.
You have now created the Sprint Tasks, assigned them to team members and associated them with the parent PBI.

Notes on work item linking:

SBIs must be linked to a single PBI (or Bug). Linking a SBI to multiple PBI’s will stop the automated “Work Remaining” calculation process from working.

If you right click on a PBI item and select “Add Related Work Item” / “Sprint Backlog Item” from the context menu. The linkage between the PBI and SBI is automatically created without the need to traverse the linking dialogs.

What Now?

We now have a create and populated a Team Project. The project contains a single sprint, 4 user stories each of which have 4 sprint tasks. This is the basics of the Scrum for Team System process template. The next part of the process would be working through the sprint backlog, adjusting the sprint backlog item state as needed reducing the work remaining until a “Done” state is reached.

I hope you have found this introduction to the Scrum for Team System process template useful. For more information please review the extensive process guidance (http://scrumforteamsystem.com/processguidance/v2/ProcessGuidance.aspx) written in collaboration between Ken Schwaber and Colin Bird.

If you have any questions or observations, please visit the Scrum for Team System community forum.

http://scrumforteamsystem.com/cs/forums/

Scrum for Team System - Work Item Migration Utility

sfts — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 13:59:00 GMT

Scrum for Team System – Work Item Migration Utility

During the creation of the Scrum for Team System (SfTS) version 2 template, the development team created several utility programs to help test and work with the new template. One of these utilities is the “Work Item Migration Utility”.

Work Item Migration

By default, the team foundation server does not provide the ability to migrate work item data from one project to another. Work item data can be exported by opening queries in Excel, saving and then publishing to an alternative target project. This is a time consuming process that doesn’t maintain the linkage between work items and attachments and does not include all the work item history. The excel solution is less than ideal.

Enter the “Work Item Migration Utility”. This utility enables you to export work item data from SfTS v1.x and SfTS v2.x projects into an xml formatted save files and then import them into another SfTS v2.1 project. This process not only maintains the work item linkage, but also includes all the work item historical data. Global lists (Teams and Environments) are included in the exported data and in addition, you can also export / import the contents of the team project portal.

How to use the utility

This application requires that you have Team Explorer 2008 installed.

The attached zip contains all the files needed to run the migration utility. However, there is no packaged installer. Instead you will need to extract the content of the zip to a working folder and then run the Conchango.TeamSystem.SfTSWorkItemMigrationUtility.exe to get started.

The utility works by using the concept of migration projects. Three types of migration project can be created;

· Export Project:
The work item data is exported into xml data files.

· Import Project:
Previously exported data files are used to import data into a SfTS project

· Export and Import project:
This is a combination of the above projects that completes the process in a single iteration.

Example: Creating an export and import project:

Before you start this example, you will need an existing SfTS v1.x or v2.x project to use as a source for the data migration. You will also need to have downloaded and extracted the attached zip file as detailed above in the "How to use section".

1. Create the demo target project that will be the target of the data migration:

a. Create a new project and name it “DemoTarget”

b. Select the “Agile software development with scrum – v2.1.xxxxxxx”

c. Click the finish button and wait for the project creation to complete:

2. Launch the utility (Conchango.TeamSystem.SfTSWorkItemMigrationUtility.exe) and create a new Export and Import project.

3. Complete the “Migration Project Main Section” as follows:

a. Migration Project Name: Demo Project Migration

b. Working Folder: c:\temp\DemoMigration

c. Data File Name: MigrationDataFile.xml

4. Complete the “Source Server Settings” section as follows:

a. Source TFS URL: http://[yourtfshost]:8080

b. Click Connect.
(This loads the project list)

c. Source Project Name: Source project name

d. If the date format of the TFS machine differs from the execution machine, enter the TFS date format here. Otherwise leave blank.
Example: MM/dd/yyyy HH:mm:ss

5. Complete the “Target Server Settings” as follows:

a. Target TFS URL: http://[yourtfshost]:8080

b. Click Connect. (This loads the project list)

c. Target Project Name: DemoTarget (as created in step 1)

d. Installation User Name: The SfTS installation account

Example: TFSRTM08\TFSSETUP

Note: This account must be the same as the account used to install the template.

e. Delete Existing Sprint Work Items: Checked

f. Refresh TFS Warehouse: Checked

g. Demo Mode: Not-Checked

6. Save the project definition as “DemoMigration.migproj”

7. Click the “Execute Migration Project” to begin the migration.
During the migration process several console windows will open and display the process activity. When a console window process finishes it may be necessary to hit the return key in order to continue the migration process (Note: Do not close the console windows by clicking the [X] or pressing [ctrl]+C. This will throw an exception and stop the migration process). The exported data files will be written to the working folder specified in step 3.

a. Exporting the Work Item Data:

b. Importing the Work Item Data:

c. Refreshing the Data Warehouse:

8. You have now migrated the work item data into the new “DemoTarget” project

What doesn't it do?

It is important to note that this utility does not migrate source code, build process or any version control information.

Disclaimer

This utility was not created with the intention of being released as a third party utility. Please use with care and ensure that any important data is backed up prior to use. It is always advisable to create and migrate some test projects prior to attempting a large migration.

If you experience any problems while using this utility, please visit the Scrum for Team System and use the community forum.

Note: The attachment has been updated to solve a date parse error reported by some users - Crispin 21/10/2008

Note: Areas and Iteration paths are NOT support by this utility.