Team Foundation Consulting

TFS Reporting using Power BI and REST services

2018-10-11T08:00:00.000+02:00

I've been getting the question around reporting options in TFS, specifically on-premises, fairly often. Currently we have a few options, using queries and charts or widgets, try to use the warehouse / analysis services setup or wait for the Analytics services to come on-prem. A few clients need more details than the queries can offer and do not want to spend the overhead to configure

Team Foundation Server Anti-Virus Exclusions

2018-06-27T08:00:00.000+02:00

A while back I had big problems with a client's on-premise TFS environment suddenly running the CPU to near 100% for 2 – 5 minutes at a time. This slowed down the entire system and caused TFS to slow down to the extent that developers could not accomplish much on TFS. This happened intermittently and we took a few weeks to pin it down to the anti-virus. It seems TFS uses a local cache, and

Linux and Windows event more love with containers (LCOW)

2018-05-07T08:14:00.000+02:00

I have noticed "Linux containers on Windows built with LinuxKit" (LCOW) a while back. Today I found a blog post from briantweet actually running a Windows and Linux container together. There are a few steps that you need to follow to get things working though. You need to be working on a later release of docker (at least 18.03 I believe) Switch to windows containers: and have the

Tips and Tricks: Open Workitem in Visual Studio

2017-12-13T08:46:00.001+02:00

Problem:Getting annoyed when working in Visual Studio 2017 and each time you you open a work item from Team Explorer pane, it opens it in the web?Well according to recent conversations I have had, it appears that not to many people know about the ability to set the behaviour.Solution:By default, VS2017 will open the work items in the browser, but there is a way to change it. When you open Visual

Tips and Tricks: User has Allow Delete work items, but no delete button on work item

2017-12-04T08:00:00.000+02:00

Problem:The user in TFS/VSTS has all the rights enabled to delete work items. The problem is that when you open the work items the "Delete" button is missing, and you do not have the option to delete in query lists.When you look at the inherited rights you see something like this:All indication is that the permission is allowed, but the end result is that it is denied.Solution:This may be that

Tips and Tricks: TFS Excel Plugin not loading

2017-11-27T08:55:00.000+02:00

Problem:Close an Excel spreadsheet with/or without having a TFS/VSTS connected list. When you open the spreadsheet again, the Team tab is missing in the ribbon bar. You then need to go through and re-enable the plugin through Excel options to reload the plugin and get the Team tab back.This also disconnects your TFS/VSTS linked worksheets, causing you to have to reconnect or re-open a query to

Using Office UI Fabric to create a VSTS Extension

2017-11-06T12:33:00.000+02:00

In the beginning In the beginning god wanted to make earth. So, god found a cool looking bootstrapper and loaded up his favorite command line. God then stepped through and downloaded all 100’s of packages to be able to run the bootstrapper and then the bootstrapper itself: npm install create-planet -g God created earth create-planet earth and all was good for a few days. God then decided he

Containers on Azure as part of a CI/CD pipeline

2017-11-05T12:03:00.002+02:00