Define dependencies for task groups and tasks in plug-in files

When you add a task group or a task to a plug-in file, you must add them in the correct sequence and declare any dependencies that the group or task has on the successful completion of other task groups or tasks. A task can depend on other tasks, requiring other tasks to complete before primary task can run. For example, the task to create work item queries cannot run until all the tasks to create work item types have successfully completed. Therefore, the task to upload work item queries depends on the task to upload the types of work items.

Required plug-ins and plug-in dependencies

The following illustration shows the dependent relationships that are defined for the Team Foundation Server (TFS) process templates. As the illustration shows, the plug-in for Work Item Tracking depends on the successful completion of the plug-in for Groups and Permissions, which depends on the successful completion of the plug-in for Classifications. The plug-ins for both Test Management and Version Control depend on the completion of the first three plug-ins. The plug-ins for Build, Lab, Reports, and Portal depend on the completion of the plug-in for Version Control.

Tip

If you define your task groups and tasks in each plug-in file in the same order as their dependencies, you make reading the file and eliminating dependency problems easier.

Dependencies can be used to indicate the order in which plug-ins run in the New Team Project Wizard. Some plug-ins are always dependent on other plug-ins. Also, not all plug-ins are required for a process template.

The following table identifies which plug-ins depend on other plug-ins. Only the plug-in for Classifications is required. All other plug-ins are optional. For more information about each plug-in, see Overview of process template files.

Plug-in	Dependent Plug-ins
Build	Groups, VersionControl
Classifications	None
Groups	Classifications
Lab	Build, Classifications, Groups, WorkItemTracking
Portal	Classifications, Reporting, VersionControl, and WorkItemTracking
Reporting	Classifications, VersionControl, and WorkItemTracking
TestManagement	Classifications, Groups, and WorkItemTracking
VersionControl	Classifications, Groups, and WorkItemTracking
WorkItemTracking	Classifications and Groups

Defining task group dependencies

Use the dependency element in tasks and groups to indicate when a dependency exists. The following example shows how to use the dependency element to specify that the WorkItemTracking task group depends on the Classification and Groups task groups.

<group id="WorkItemTracking"
   description="Workitem definitions uploading."
   completionMessage="Workitem definitions uploaded.">
   <dependencies> 
      <dependency groupId="Classification"/> 
      <dependency groupId="Groups"/> 
   </dependencies>
   <taskList filename="WorkItem Tracking\WorkItems.xml"/>
</group>

Note

The groupId element references the id element value in the other group.

The following table describes the elements that you use to define task group dependencies. For more information about how to define task groups, see Process template XML elements reference.

Element	Syntax	Description
dependencies	<dependencies> <dependency>. . . </dependency> </dependencies>	Required child element of group. Specifies the other groups on which a group depends.
dependency	<dependency groupId="groupId" />	Optional child element of dependencies. Specifies the ID of another task group on which this group depends. The other group must complete its tasks before this task group can start.

Defining task dependencies

The following example shows how to use the dependency element to specify that the WorkItems task depends on the task with an ID of "WITs."

<task
   id="WIs"
   name="WorkItems"
   plugin="Microsoft.ProjectCreationWizard.WorkItemTracking"
   completionMessage="Work items uploaded"
   completionDescription = "Processing the actual work items used by work item tracking">
   <dependencies> 
      <dependency taskId="WITs" /> 
   </dependencies>

The following table describes the elements that you use to define task dependencies. For more information about how to define tasks, see Define the tasks to process a plug-in.

Element	Syntax	Description
dependencies	<dependencies> <dependency>. . . </dependency> </dependencies>	Optional child element of task. Specifies the other tasks on which a task depends.
dependency	<dependency taskId="taskId" />	Optional child element of dependencies. Specifies the ID of another task on which this task depends. The other task must complete its tasks before this task can start.

See Also

Concepts

Customize a process template

Define the tasks to process a plug-in

Define the root tasks using the process template plug-in file File