Effective Software Configuration Management Using Team System 2005 (3 days)

Effective Software Configuration Management Using Team System 2005 Overview

This Visual Studio Team System training course provides students with the knowledge and skills to effectively identify, manage, and track changes to software. Intended for teams working in parallel, this course focuses on using Visual Studio Team System to maximize productivity while minimizing mistakes to reduce the amount of effort expended when changes must be made.

This VSTS course is intended for current software development professionals who want to work more effectively in parallel. Some students may be part of distributed teams who work on the same project as others but without ideal communication. Other students may be working on multiple versions of the same application at the same time. Regardless of the situation, students will be able to learn and get hands-on experience with all of the Software Configuration Management related features of Visual Studio Team System.

Effective Software Configuration Management Using Team System 2005 Course Goals

• Understand Software Configuration Management (SCM)
• Understand Team System’s support of SCM
• Identify and control changes using Team System
• Ensure changes are properly implemented using Team System
• Use Team System to report changes to others who may have an interest
• Protect Visual Studio projects by placing them under Team Foundation Version Control
• Work with Version Control in a multi-user environment
• Enforce quality using check-in constraints
• Automate the software build process using Team Build
• Ensure quality using build tests

Effective Software Configuration Management Using Team System 2005 Course Prerequisites

Experience in the following areas is required:

• Familiarity with one or more software development methodologies
• Visual Studio (any version)
• The basic foundations of .NET
• Basic C# .NET code (all source code will be provided)

Effective Software Configuration Management Using Team System 2005 Course Outline

1. Module 1: Introduction to Software Configuration Management
   • This module introduces Software Configuration Management and the related support in Team System, from both a project management and software engineering point of view.
   1. Introduction to Software Configuration Management
   2. Team System’s support of SCM
   3. Team System support for identifying change
   4. Team System support for controlling change
   5. Team System support for ensuring changes are being properly implemented
   6. Team System support for reporting changes
   7. Lab: Review the SCM project scenario
   8. Lab: Meet the team and review their security permissions
   9. Lab: Review the architecture and related projects
2. Module 2: Identifying Change - Team Projects
   • This module introduces team projects, process templates, work items, and source control options. Each of these can be used to identify and track the changes pertaining to a software development project.
   1. Introduction to team projects
   2. Creating team projects
   3. Versioning team projects
   4. Configuring team projects
   5. Methodologies and process templates
   6. Work items
   7. Team Explorer and other client applications
   8. Source control options
   9. Project portal
   10. Lab: Create and configure a team project
   11. Lab: Secure a team project
   12. Lab: Create work items using Team Explorer, MS Excel, and MS Project
   13. Lab: Upload documents to the project portal
   14. Lab: Create work items using the Work Item API
   15. Lab: Explore the process template
   16. Lab: Explore the widget: Process Template Editor (optional)
3. Module 3: Controlling Change - Team Foundation Version Control
   • This module is the first of three to focus on Team Foundation Version Control. It introduces the primary version control capabilities and explains how to plan and setup version control for team projects in order to control change in a parallel development environment.
   1. Introduction to controlling change
   2. Using version control as communication
   3. Planning version control
   4. Creating and managing workspaces
   5. Integration with Visual Studio 2005
   6. Alternate clients (MSSCCI provider)
   7. Migrating from VSS and other SCC systems
   8. Lab: Setup Team Foundation Server version control
   9. Lab: Create and manage local workspaces
   10. Lab: Explore Visual Studio 2005 integration
   11. Lab: Place non-Visual Studio related files under version control
   12. Lab: Migrate from Visual SourceSafe (optional)
   13. Lab: Explore the widget: MSSCCI provider (optional)
   14. Lab: Explore the widget: Workspace Sidekick (optional)
4. Module 4: Controlling Change - Parallel Development
   • This module continues 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
   2. Parallel development scenarios
   3. Branching and Merging
   4. Conflict detection and resolution
   5. Shelving and unshelving
   6. Securing version control
   7. Lab: Understand and resolve conflicts in a multi-user environment
   8. Lab: Branch code and manage branches
   9. Lab: 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)
   14. Lab: Explore the widget: Team Foundation Power Toys (optional)
5. Module 5: Ensuring Changes are Properly Implemented - Check-In Policies
   • This module completes the discussion of Team Foundation Version Control, focusing on ensuring the quality of the checked-in artifacts. The module will discuss the topics related to 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. Explore the Visual Studio 2005 SDK
   4. Creating a custom check-in policy
   5. Deploying custom check-in policies
   6. Managing policy overrides
   7. Check-in policies vs. build tests
   8. Lab: Create a check-in policy for work item association
   9. Lab: Create a check-in policy for code analysis
   10. Lab: Migrate code analysis policy settings to Visual Studio projects
   11. Lab: Create a unit test and manage .vsmdi test lists
   12. Lab: Create a check-in policy for running tests
   13. Lab: Create a custom check-in policy
   14. Lab: Deploy and test a custom check-in policy
   15. Lab: Explore the widget: Policy Override Notification Tool (optional)
6. Module 6: Ensuring Changes are Properly Implemented - Team Build
   • This module covers the Team Build features of Team Foundation Server, including the architecture and execution process. Topics include the creating, configuring, and execution of build scripts, as well as how to customize the scripts and extend the notification services to execute builds and associated tests automatically.
   1. Overview of Team Build
   2. Team Build Process
   3. Executing Team Build Scripts
   4. Customizing MSBuild
   5. Automating Team Build
   6. Continuous integration
   7. Lab: Create a Team Build script
   8. Lab: Execute a team build in various ways
   9. Lab: Ensure a quality build
   10. Lab: Configure build notifications
   11. Lab: Enable continuous integration with Team Build
   12. Lab: Customize Team Build script and create custom MSBuild tasks
   13. Lab: Configure Team Build to publish a Web site (optional)
7. Module 7: Reporting Change - Queries, Reports, and Traceability
   • This module covers the querying, reporting, and notification capabilities of Team System. Topics include querying work items and their audit history, executing various reports, creating custom reports, setting up email notifications, and the overall traceability of work items through check-ins and finally to a build.
   1. Methods to track and report changes
   2. Quality metrics
   3. Using queries to track work items
   4. Work item auditing and traceability
   5. Running reports
   6. Creating custom reports
   7. Understanding and configuring notifications
   8. Lab: Query work items from team explorer
   9. Lab: View work item audit history and trace work items to changesets
   10. Lab: Use WIQL to query work items
   11. Lab: Query work items from Microsoft office and Internet Explorer
   12. Lab: Run reports from the project portal, Report Manager, and Team Explorer
   13. Lab: Explore the Team Foundation Server data warehouse
   14. Lab: Create and execute a custom report
   15. Lab: Explore the widget: Warehouse Status Update Tool (optional)
8. Module 8: SCM Patterns and Best Practices
   • This module describes some common patterns you can use when implementing software configuration management, especially with regards to branching and merging models. Several Team System and SCM best practices will also be highlighted in this module.
   1. Terminology and nomenclature
   2. Common scenarios
   3. SCM patterns for those scenarios
   4. Best Practice: when to create a new team project
   5. Best Practice: when to branch and merge
   6. Best Practice: managing workspaces
   7. Best Practice: balance speed and quality
   8. Best Practice: balance autonomous work and integration
   9. Implementing SCM in an agile software development
   10. Worst Practices and Anti-patterns
   11. Third party tool review
   12. References

Effective Software Configuration Management Using Team System 2005 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.

Effective Software Configuration Management Using Team System 2005 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 Effective Software Configuration Management Using Team System 2005

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