Is anyone able to suggest the best way to set up a recurring reminder within a VSTS (Visual Studio Team Services) project? I want it to act like an Outlook Calendar recurring reminder that the whole team gets once per week.
I've looked at creating a Story / Epic / Feature and trying to assign a recurring team reminder to that but can't see a way to do it. The task concerned would be ongoing so in an ideal world of someone new to VSTS, I'd create one of the aforementioned things, set a recurring reminder on it, the team do the task when the reminder comes up and add a note. And that continues until we switch it off.
I've had a look online but can't find anything as yet.
The best thing that comes close is a dashboard widget that uses #me in its query.
VSTS doesn't have a scheduled reminder or alert system.
You can probably cobble something together using the REST API and a scheduled build. Calling a work item query and sending email is pretty easy from PowerShell.
As jessehouwing said that you can do it through Scheduled build, there are some extensions related to email in VSTS marketplace, such as Send Email.
On the other hand, there is Outlook add-in extension: TeamCompanion For Outlook.
Related
I can't work out how to report how many hours per week were recorded by each team member.
For example if a task is 20 hrs, and 10 hours was done last week, and 10 this week, how can I tell how meany hours were recorded against the task each week?
I saw some time tracker plugins, they are not what I'm talking about. They require that the user start and stop time tracking kind of like upwork.
The developers already enter completed hours as they progress the tasks. So if devops remember the dates of each entry then I should be able to query how many hours were added this week, or month, or whatever per user per task.
Here is an excerpt from a discussion we had about it:
Meh, as far as Im concerned:
I make the tasks in notepad usually, so someone can add them to devops.
Someone adds them to develops.
The developers receive them in devops and record their status and times as they develop.
Devops doesnt seem to report on weekly times to us, so we ask the developers to write everything down in notepad or doc and pass us a
list or what they did with times.
We get the developers lists and use them to report to mgmt.
SO
What is the point of steps 2 and 3? May as well just pass the guys
their task in plain test list as I make it in notepad, it will be
easier for them to add their times and pass it back. For us devops is
just extra unwanted work while ever we cant work out how to report on
developer hours.
I think, you can use several ways:
Way 1. Use PowerBi reporting.
Each developer updates work hours every day.
You can use Analytics view to get task history:
Add Completed work to this view.
Connect to Analytics with Power BI Data Connector. Then you can find revisions for each tasks and calculate hour difference
Way 2. Customize your process template.
Add to your process template new work item type (like Time or Activity). Add to these work items new field (like Activity date) or use existing field Target Date. Add to these work items the Completed Work field. Add a custom work item type, Add a custom field to a work item type.
You developers add a new Time work item as child work item to their task and update the Completed Work field. You can use work item queries to see time updates.
TimeTracking in Azure Devops is pain. We have developed our custom solution to track time in DevOps. You can install extension https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=Sense4code.Sense4code-Manday. For more info you can visit also https://www.manday.io/doc/azure-devops-getting-started for more info.
I am trying to recreate my own tfs with similar features. The additional fields for an item are Effort(hours).
Is this an addon or does this require change in flow via visual studio? I think I have an idea but I forgot how is technology to edit TFS called and where in visual studio?
The Effort(hours) in Task work item type is existing in AGILE and CMMI process Template. If you use Scrum template, you can change to the Agile template for your project.
You can use Burndown in tasks if you want to track how much work remains in a sprint backlog, understand how quickly your team has completed tasks, and predict when your team will achieve the goal or goals of the sprint.
We simply use number of tasks for our burndown measure. Usually you do something like actual hours or ideal hours, but this was good enough for us and apparently interesting enough to need some clarification.
There is a user voice about using the effort estimates work in the Scrum TFS template for your reference (The response from TFS Product Group):
The “Effort” field on the Product Backlog Item is meant to be any unit
the team decides they want to use. Some teams use “Story Points”. Some
use “Ideal Days”.
The Remaining Work field on the Task, is the same think. It is
whatever the team decides it to be. The only thing our tools expect is
that it is reduced as you work on it, so we can provide a burn-down.
If what you are looking for is a way to capture the original estimate
(complexity) of the task, then you’ll need to update the Task work
item type definition and add that custom field yourself.
If you need to custom field, please refer to Add or modify a field for details.
And this thread for your reference: Scrum - When do you Estimate the Effort for Product Backlog Items?
Besides, you can also try the Addons : eg TFS Time Tracker
I am working on scrum with VSTS(Visual Studio Team Services)
I am able to add estimated effort to backlog items as well as estimated hours to different tasks.
I was wondering if there is a way that allows me to add the actual time taken to finish a specific task. So that I can later have a report or so to see the difference between estimation and actual in order to enhance the team estimation.
Not in the SCRUM Template. That template is all about remaining time. I believe the AGILE Template will let you enter original estimate, remaining time and time spent. So perhaps look into that.
Failing that, you could use an add-on. Have a browse of the Visual Studio Marketplace
This one looks like it might work for you: TFS Time Tracker
Completed Work field is only available for the Agile Template. I believe you can still create a custom template to be able to configure fields in the default template (https://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/docs/work/process/customize-process-field#add-field).
However, VSTS is probably not intended for time tracking. You can try and use time sheet extensions to VSTS.
For example, TFS timesheet (https://www.teamexpand.com/product/tfs-timesheet) allows inputting hours directly from a Work Item tab and generate detailed reports that show how many hours were spent to complete a task with a day-by-day breakdown. It also allows to keep track of actual time vs. estimated time.
If a user checks out a file and fails to check it back in after a certain number of days, I'd like TFS 2010 to generate an e-mail. (For example, the user would be notified after the item has been checked out for 1 day, and the entire team notified after 2 days.)
I found the article about writing TFS server plugins
but I was wondering if there is a simpler way.
The problem is, that notifications/alerts are event triggered in TFS. So if nothing changes there will be no trigger.
A little bit easier than writing your own plugin, which also requires a trigger, but can check for more than the changed item, a small application would be easier. A small command line tool is enough and you could run it by using scheduled tasks once a day. The tool would check for all pending changes and how long they are pending and if they are to old, it will send a mail to the user.
How to generate email alerts on the particular due date in Team Foundation Server(TFS)??
I am new to TFS.
Please reply in detail.
The TFS Email Alert system is triggered by WorkItem changes, Builds and checkins not date/times. I'm not entirely sure what you're trying to do, but I don't believe it's possible.