Advanced Visual Studio Team System 2008 Training (2 days)

Advanced Visual Studio Team System 2008 Training Overview

This advanced Visual Studio Team System training course dives deep into the areas of process template customization, version control, parallel development, and Team Foundation Build. It provides students with the knowledge and skills to effectively customize process templates, understand the advanced usage of the version control and check-in policies in a parallel development environment, and customize Team Foundation Build. The course also includes many best practices and solutions to common problems in Visual Studio Team System 2008.

This VSTS training class is intended for students who have a working-knowledge of Team System and Team Foundation Server, or who have attended comparable training classes.

Advanced Visual Studio Team System 2008 Training Course Goals

• Understand the architecture of a process template
• Customize a process template
• Create a new work item type
• Alter work item types for existing team projects
• Understand parallel development
• Understand Team Foundation Server's support for parallel development
• Setup and manage workspaces
• Detect and resolve conflicts in a parallel development environment
• Apply the correct branching pattern for a given SCM environment
• Use branching and merging effectively
• Use shelving and unshelving effectively
• Secure version control assets
• Use alternate compare and merge tools
• Use Team Foundation Server 2008 Power Tools effectively
• Use the MSSCCI provider from SQL Server Management Studio
• Create and use work item, code analysis, and unit testing check-in policies
• Create and deploy a custom check-in policy
• Manage check-in policy failure and overrides
• Configure check-in policy failure notifications
• Create and execute a Team Foundation Build manually
• Schedule a Team Foundation Build using Windows Scheduler
• Run code analysis as part of a Team Foundation Build
• Configuration of Team Foundation Build notifications
• Implement Continuous Integration using Team Foundation Build
• Customize Team Foundation Build
• Create custom MSBuild tasks
• Configure Team Foundation Build to build and deploy a Web application

Advanced Visual Studio Team System 2008 Training Course Prerequisites

Experience in the following areas is required:

• Working knowledge of Visual Studio Team System and Team Foundation Server.
• Familiarity with their organization's software development methodology
• Developing and supporting multiple versions of a software project
• Working with multiple developers on a software project
• Working with the types of conflicts that can arise from a multi-user project
• Foundations of .NET
• Visual C# code (all source code will be provided)
• Microsoft Windows operating system basics
• Microsoft Windows security basics

Advanced Visual Studio Team System 2008 Training Course Outline

1. Module 1: Customizing Process Templates
   • This module introduces process templates and the tools and techniques to customize and tailor them for a team's specific needs.
   1. Customizing vs. extending
   2. Process template architecture
   3. Modifying process guidance
   4. Modifying process templates
   5. Work item type schema
   6. Customizing work item types
   7. Configuring work item state transition workflow
   8. Lab: Download and explore a process template
   9. Lab: Create a new process template
   10. Lab: Upload and test a process template
   11. Lab: Alter work item types of existing team projects
   12. Lab: Use the Process Editor found in the Team Foundation Server 2008 Power Tools
2. Module 2: Parallel Development
   • This module dives deep into the discussion of Team Foundation Version Control, focusing on the topics related to multiple users working on multiple, sometimes simultaneous, projects and project versions in an agile environment. The topics in this module cover branching, merging, shelving, and detecting/mitigating conflicts when they occur.
   1. Introduction to parallel development, terminology
   2. Parallel development scenarios, locking models
   3. Branching, merging, and promotion modeling
   4. Branching patterns, conflict detection and resolution
   5. Shelving, unshelving, achieving peer review using shelving
   6. Securing version control files and folders
   7. Using Team Foundation Server 2008 Power Tools
   8. Lab: Understand and resolve conflicts in a multi-user environment
   9. Lab: Branch code, manage branches, merge changes between branches
   10. Lab: Use the command-line tool to perform a baseless merge
   11. Lab: Secure artifacts in version control
   12. Lab: Shelve and unshelve changes
   13. Lab: Explore the widget: alternate merge tool (optional)
3. Module 3: Check-In Policies
   • This module continues the deep dive into Team Foundation Version Control, focusing on ensuring the quality of the checked-in artifacts. The topics in this module include using the standard policies to run tests, code analysis, and verify work item association, as well as creating and using custom check-in policies.
   1. Ensuring changes are properly implemented
   2. Configuring check-in policies and notes
   3. Using Team Foundation Server 2008 Power Tools policy-pack
   4. Understanding policy failure, overriding, and managing overrides
   5. Creating, deploying, and debugging a custom check-in policy
   6. Lab: Configure the work item association check-in policy
   7. Lab: Configure the code analysis check-in policy
   8. Lab: Migrate code analysis policy settings to Visual Studio projects
   9. Lab: Create a unit test and manage test lists
   10. Lab: Configure a unit testing check-in policy
   11. Lab: Use the Custom Path policy to scope other check-in policies
   12. Lab: Create, deploy, and debug a custom check-in policy (optional)
   13. Lab: Explore the widget: Policy Override Notification Tool (optional)
4. Module 4: Advanced Team Foundation Build
   • This module includes a deep dive into Team Foundation Build, including a more technical look into the architecture and execution process. Topics include understanding MSBuild and customizing and automating Team Foundation Build.
   1. Team Foundation Build architecture
   2. Automating Team Foundation Build
   3. Continuous integration
   4. Customizing Team Foundation Build
   5. MSBuild Architecture
   6. Understanding targets and tasks
   7. Creating custom MSBuild tasks
   8. Common build recipes
   9. Lab: Define an automated build
   10. Lab: Queue (execute) the automated build in various ways
   11. Lab: Ensure a quality build by enabling code analysis
   12. Lab: Ensure a quality build by running Build Verification Tests (BVTs)
   13. Lab: Configure build notifications
   14. Lab: Customize the automated build definition
   15. Lab: Create a custom MSBuild task (optional)
5. Module 5: Patterns, Best-Practices, and How-To's
   • This comprehensive module covers various Visual Studio Team System and Team Foundation Server patterns and best practices, and also examines how to solve many of the frequently asked questions and problems.
   1. Common SCM patterns
   2. Organizing team projects
   3. Planning iterations and releases
   4. Configuring areas, iterations, and version control settings
   5. Bulk copying and moving work items and artifacts
   6. Promoting an application from Dev to QA to Production
   7. Promoting an application through major and minor version changes
   8. Best practices - workspace management
   9. Best practices - branching and merging
   10. Best practices - working with shared code and components
   11. Best practices - working offline
   12. Best practices - achieving traceability
   13. Team Foundation Server capacity planning
   14. How-To - various topics around work items, version control, and build automation
   15. Resources

Advanced Visual Studio Team System 2008 Training Course Materials

In addition to a comprehensive set of materials, including course notes and all the programming examples, each student will also receive a one-year subscription to Webucator's online reference library, which contains hundreds of the most current electronic technology books - a $149.95 per student value.

Advanced Visual Studio Team System 2008 Training Technical Requirements

1. Operating System Options
   • Windows Vista
   • Windows XP with Service Pack 2
2. Visual Studio 2005 Team System
3. Browser Options
   • Internet Explorer 6.0 or later
     • Download
   • Firefox
     • Download

Class Files for Advanced Visual Studio Team System 2008 Training

A DVD with a virtual machine and lab files will be sent ahead of class.