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Updating a Customized Process Template

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You must manually update template files in order to access the new features that are available with version 5.0 of the Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF) process templates and keep the customizations that you made to a previous MSF process template. You must copy the MSF process template file that you want to use and apply your customized changes to each file. For more information about the latest MSF process templates, see Choose a Process Template.

Note

After your application-tier server is upgraded to Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010, you can use the Process Template Manager to access version 5.0 MSF process templates in addition to your existing process templates. For more information, see Download a Process Template.

You can follow the guidance that is provided in this topic to support the manual update of the template files. Once you have completed this update, you can upload the customized process template to Team Foundation Server. When the process template is uploaded, you can create team projects. For more information about how to create team projects and the resources that are required to support specific features, see Launching a New Team Project. 

Before you perform the manual update, you should review the information that is provided in Working with Process Template Files and Step-by-Step Customization Process.

In this topic

  • Tips for Performing a Manual Update

  • Security Groups and Initial Access Permissions

  • Product Areas, Project Lifecycles, and Project Field Mappings

  • Work Item Tracking

  • Portal Documents

  • Reports

  • Version Control

  • Build, Lab, and Test Management

  • Root Tasks That Are Defined in the Process Template Plug-in File

Tips for Performing a Manual Update

  • Do not remove a file or a task in order to upload a file unless you know what the file is and that you will have no use for it.

  • To locate the customizations that you have made, you can perform a diff operation on comparable files that exist in the two templates.

  • You can search for the dependency element across all plug-in files to learn what tasks depend on other tasks that are being completed.

Security Groups and Initial Access Permissions

The Groups and Permissions folder contains the GroupsandPermissions plug-in file that configures the initial security groups and their permissions. Dependencies exist for the three groups that are defined in the GroupsandPermissions plug-in file, as indicated in the following list:

  • The Readers group is referenced in the Build, Lab, VersionControl, and workitems plug-in files.

  • The Contributors group is referenced in the Build, Lab, VersionControl, and workitems plug-in files. It is also referenced in each definition file for work item types. You can assign a work item only to a team member who is granted a Contributors role.

  • The Builders group that is defined in the GroupsandPermissions plug-in file is referenced in the Build, VersionControl, and workitems plug-in files.

For more information, see Configuring Initial Groups, Members, and Permissions and Controlling Access to Functional Areas.

Product Areas, Project Lifecycles, and Project Field Mappings

The Classification folder contains the Classification plug-in file that configures the initial set of product areas and iterations for a team project. This folder also contains the FieldMapping file that customizes the mapping of fields between Microsoft Project and Team Foundation.

When you update files that are contained in the Classification folder, note the following information:

  • You can add product areas as that are required to support your project needs. No product areas (StructureType=ProjectModelHierarchy) are defined in the MSF process templates.

  • Changes that you make to the project lifecycle structure (StructureType=ProjectLifecycle) can cause some work item queries and workbooks that are defined for the agile process template to become nonfunctional. Specifically, the following objects are created in the agile process template that references Iteration 1 that is defined in the Classification plug-in file:

    • The query folder that is titled "Iteration 1" contains the following work item queries that reference the Iteration 1 path: ActiveBugs.wiq, ActiveTasks.wiq, Iteration1Backlog.wiq, BugTriage.wiq, CompletedTasks.wiq, OpenIssues.wiq, OpenTestCases.wiq, OpenUserStories.wiq, ResolvedBugs.wiq, UserStoriesDelivered.wiq, and UserStoriesWithoutTestCases.wiq.

      For more information, see Team Queries (Agile).

    • The workbooks that are uploaded to the team project portal reference the iteration-specific queries.

      For more information, see Workbooks (Agile).

  • You can update the FieldMapping file by entering any changes that you made in your customized process template. In the latest version of the MSF process templates, the following changes are introduced:

    • The Mapping element has one new attribute: IfSummaryRefreshOnly.

    • Three new elements are supported: HierarchyLinkType, DependencyLinkType, and ResourceNameSeparator.

    • New elements include the following: HierarchyLinkType, DependencyLinkType, and ResourceNameSeparator.

    • The ContextField element is removed. It is ignored if it is present in the FieldMapping file.

      For more information, see The Microsoft Project Field Mapping File.

For more information, see Defining the Initial Areas and Iterations in the Classification Plug-in.

Work Item Tracking

The WorkItem Tracking folder contains the workitems plug-in file that you use to upload files that define work item types, link types, work item queries, categories, and global lists. The latest versions of the MSF process templates introduce link types and categories, significant changes to the names and definitions of work item types, and new field attributes.

When you update files that are contained in the WorkItem Tracking folder, note the following information:

  • You can update the definitions for work item types that are provided in the TypeDefinitions subfolder to meet your custom needs. Renaming any type will break functionality to dependent work item queries. For information about how to customize work item types, see Add Type Definitions for Work Items to a Process Template.

    For more information about the work item types that are defined in the MSF process templates, see Work Items and Workflow (Agile) or Work Items and Workflow (CMMI).

    If you have added any custom fields that are used to store person names, and you want these names to be synchronized with Active Directory or a work group, you can add the syncnamechanges attribute to the FIELD element in the type definition file.

    In addition, you can add the reportingrefname and reportingname attributes to your custom fields.

    For more information, see Adding and Modifying Work Item Fields to Support Reporting.

  • You can add global lists without breaking any dependencies. You add global lists by adding them to a definition file for a work item type. No global lists are defined in the MSF process templates. For more information, see Defining Global Lists.

  • The categories that are defined in the categories file are used by Microsoft Test Manager. You should leave these unchanged. You can define additional categories to support your project needs. For more information, see Grouping Work Item Types into Categories.

  • The link types that are defined in the LinkTypes subfolder and in the SharedSteps and TestedBy files are used by Microsoft Test Manager. You should leave these unchanged. You can define additional link types to support your project needs. For more information, see Customizing How Work Items are Related through Link Types.

  • You can define additional work item queries and add them to the Queries folder. Changes you make to existing queries may affect the functionality of workbooks that depend on those queries.

    With work item queries, you can now assign queries to folders, assign permissions to query folders, and define queries that reference an iteration path. For more information, see Add Work Item Queries to a Process Template.

  • You can define work item instances to specify a set of startup tasks or work items to be addressed for each team project. No work item instances are defined in the MSF process templates. For more information, see Add a Work Item Instance to a Process Template.

After you have completed the update of all subordinate files in the WorkItem Tracking folder, you should review and update the tasks that are defined in the workitems plug-in file. Make sure that you perform the following actions:

  • Add a LINKTYPE element for each link type definition file that you added to the LinkTypes folder.

  • Add a WORKITEMTYPE element for each definition file that you added to the TypeDefinitions folder. For more information, see Add Type Definitions for Work Items to a Process Template.

  • Remove a WORKITEMTYPE element for each definition file that you removed from the TypeDefinitions folder.

  • Add a Query element for each work item query (wiq) file that you added to the Queries folder.

  • Remove a Query element for each wiq file that you removed from the Queries folder.

For more information, see Defining and Customizing Objects for Tracking Work Items By Using the Work Item Tracking Plug-in.

Portal Documents

The Windows SharePoint Services folder contains general documents, process guidance files, and workbooks. When you update files that are contained in the Windows SharePoint Services folder, note the following information:

  • You can add any documents to the Windows SharePoint Services folder that you want. Documents can be accessed from the team project Documents folder when the team project is provisioned with a SharePoint site.

  • Workbooks that are defined for the MSF process templates depend on the work item types, work item fields, link types, and queries that are defined in the templates. Major changes to any one of these objects may affect the functionality of workbooks.

  • You can add your own process guidance content and replace the existing process guidance files. The default process guidance files provide hyperlinks to content that is hosted in the Microsoft Developers Network (MSDN) library. For example, the guidance file for the task work item type is the following.

    <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0;URL=https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=153646&clcid=0x409" >

    When you click Task in the Documents/ Process Guidance node for a team project, it opens the process guidance topic for the task work item type. The same action occurs when you click Open process guidance for work item in a task work item form.

    When you click Open process guidance for work item, the process guidance icon that is present in each work item form, the client opens the corresponding file that is uploaded from the Process Guidance/Supporting Files folder. You can replace the .htm files with an HTML file of your own. You can also add folders and .htm files to the Supporting Files folder. For more information, see Defining the Project Portal Plug-in for a Process Template.

After you have completed the update of all subordinate files in the Windows SharePoint Services folder, you should review and update the tasks that are defined in the WssTasks plug-in file. Make sure that you perform the following actions:

  • Add a file element for each file that you added to the Windows SharePoint Services folder.

  • Remove a file element for each file that you removed from the Windows SharePoint Services folder.

  • Keep the activateFeatures section at the bottom of the file. This is required to enable the portal dashboard features.

For more information, see Defining the Project Portal Plug-in for a Process Template.

Reports

Reports in each MSF process template depend on the work item types, work item fields, and link types that are defined in the WorkItem Tracking folder. These reports are uploaded to SQL Server Reporting Services and viewed through Report Manager when the team project is provisioned with Reporting Services. These reports are based on the new schema for the data warehouse. For more information about the default reports that are provided by the MSF process templates, see Reports (Agile) or Reports (CMMI).

Note

Microsoft Excel reports are uploaded to the project portal when the team project is created.

You can add or remove reports from the process template. For more information, see Adding Reports to the Process Template.

Version Control

The Version Control folder contains a single plug-in file, VersionControl.xml. You can add any changes to this file that you made in your custom process template. For more information, see Defining the Initial Configuration of Team Foundation Version Control.

Test, Build, and Lab Management

With the latest version of the MSF process templates, three new folders and plug-in files are provided: Build, Test Management, and Lab. You will want to include the files that are contained in these folders to support functions that are performed by using Team Foundation Build, Microsoft Test Manager, and Visual Studio Lab Management, respectively.

Note the following dependencies:

  • The Build template files include a default build definition file and an upgrade build definition file. When you upgrade Team Foundation Build, new build definitions are automatically upgraded to build definitions for the current release by using the upgrade build process template.

  • Microsoft Test Manager and Lab Management require the SharedSteps and TestCase work item types, the SharedSteps and TestedBy links types, and categories.

For more information about how to customize the files that are available in the Build, Test Management, and Lab folders, see the following topics:

If you decide not to include these in the process template, make sure that you remove the group and tasklist elements that specify to run the list of tasks for their respective plug-in files.

Note

Unless you have a specific reason to remove a plug-in, leave the files that are defined in the process template.

Root Tasks That Are Defined in the Process Template Plug-in File

The last step in updating a process template is to review and update the elements that are defined in the ProcessTemplate plug-in file. When the New Team Project Wizard creates a team project, it runs the set of plug-ins that are defined in the ProcessTemplate.xml file.

Unless you have removed a plug-in file or added a custom plug-in file, you should not have to modify the ProcessTemplate plug-in file. For more information, see Defining the Root Tasks Using the Process Template Plug-in File.

See Also

Tasks

Download a Process Template

Upload a Process Template

Reference

FIELD (Definition) Element

Concepts

Updating an Upgraded Team Project to Access New Features

Working with Process Template Files

Customizing Process Templates

Other Resources

What's New in Customizing Process Templates for Visual Studio ALM