New functionality in TFS Build Manager – Managing Triggers and Build Resources

Yesterday we pushed out a new release (August 2012) of the Community TFS Build Extension, including a new version of the Community TFS Build Manager (1.0.4.6)

The two big new features in the Build Manager in this release are:

Set Triggers
It is now possible to select one or more build definitions and update the triggers for them in one simple operation:

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You’ll note that we have started collapsing the context menu a bit, the list of commands are getting long! Ler

When selecting the Trigger command, you’ll see a dialog where the options should be self-explanatory:

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The only thing missing here is the Scheduled trigger option, you’ll have to do that using Team Explorer for now.

 

Manage Build Resources
The other feature is that it is now possible to view the build controllers and agents in your current collection and also perform some actions against them. The new functionality is available by select the Build Resources item in the drop down menu:

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Selecting this, you’ll see a (sort of) hierarchical view of the build controllers and their agents:

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In this view you can quickly see all the resources and their status. You can also view the build directory of each build agent and the tags that are associated with them.
On the action menu, you can enable and disable both agents and controllers (several at a time), and you can also select to remove them.
By selecting Manage, you’ll be presented with the standard Manage Controller dialog from Visual Studio where you can set the rest of the properties. Hopefully we’ll be able to implement most of the existing functionality so that we can remove that menu option Ler
Our plan is to add more functionality to this view, such as adding new agents/controllers, restarting build service hosts, maybe view diagnostic information such as disk space and error logs.

 

Hope you’ll find the new functionality useful. Remember to log any bugs and feature requests on the CodePlex site.

Happy building!

New VS2012 Book: Pro Application Lifecycle Management with Visual Studio 2012

During the spring/summer I have been involved with reviewing a new book about Visual Studio 2012 ALM from Apress called “Pro Application Lifecycle Management with Visual Studio 2012”

The book is written by a fellow Visual Studio ALM MVP Mathias Olausson and his colleague Joachim Rossberg. It is a very comprehensive book that covers both all aspects of ALM in general and also how to implement these practices with Visual Studio 2012. The book also has several chapters dedicated to measuring your improvements by using ALM assessments and metrics.

Read more about the book here on Mathias blog:
http://msmvps.com/blogs/molausson/archive/2012/07/17/book-project-pro-application-lifecycle-management-with-visual-studio-2012-completed.aspx

You can pre-order the book here at Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Application-Lifecycle-Management-Visual-Professional/dp/1430243449/

Check it out! Ler

ALM Rangers Readiness GIG has shipped!

Together with todays announcement that Visual Studio 2012 as been officially released, the ALM Rangers have also simultaneously shipped (“sim-shipped”) a massive set of solutions for feature gaps and value-add guidance for the ALM community.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudioalm/archive/2012/08/15/welcome-to-visual-studio-2012-alm-rangers-readiness-wave.aspx

You can find a complete list of ALM Ranger solutions here:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/ee358787

I have been a part of the Team Foundation Build Customization Guide, which have been updated with new features in Visual Studio 2012, as well as the top requested features from the first version of the guidance. As part of this guidance, we have also developed the Community TFS Build Manager, a Visual Studio extension that simplifies a lot of tasks when working with TFS Build. It now exist both for Visual Studio 2012 as well as for Visual Studio 2010. I’d like to thank the rest of the team for doing such a great job, especially Mike Fourie who has been driving the entire project in style!

I am proud to be a part of the ALM Rangers group, everybody involved put in a considerable amount of their (already limited) spare time to produce top quality guidance and tools for the community.