TFS – Create sub-folders and Solutions in Visual Studio

I have a folder under the Developers Projects. I need to create a few sub-folders, and also a Solution in VS to associate solutions items to those sub-folders.

Here is how I did it.

We first need to create a new project in Visual Studio. Highlight my folder, then go to menu File –> New –> Project…

Create a blank solution. Make sure to check “Add to Source Control”.

I named this new Solution “PC Asset ETL”.

The following steps demonstrate ho to create sub-folders locally first, then link them to a solution item. I want to create a sub folder SSIS, and check in two of my SSIS packages.

Highlight my folder in VS.

Go to Source Control menu and select New Folder.

Give it a name SSIS.

Save the changes, then Check in the pending changes. This should create a sub-folder SSIS locally for me and also on TFS server.

In the newly created SSIS sub-folder, copy two of my SSIS packages to there locally.

Go back to VS. We need to associate this sub-folder SSIS with a solution item under the VS solution “PC Asset ETL”.

In the Solution Explorer,  right-click on the solution, Add –> Existing Item…

Navigate to the SSIS folder, and select both SSIS packages I just copied.

Both SSIS packages are added to the solution, and a Solution Item is created. Rename the Solution Items to SSIS. Save the changes and check in.

Finally.

Steps to Install Team Foundation Client

Installation

1. Download Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server Workgroup Edition from MSDN.

2. Extract All Objects from ISOBuster

3. Run autorun.exe from the installation folder. Select Install Team Explorer. The product key is pre-built.

Setup

4. Open VS 2005. Under Tool, there should be a new option: Connect to Team Foundation Server.

5. Add the TFS server and select projects. There should be a new menu Team.

6. Select Tools/options/Source Control/Plug in Selections. Select Visual Studio Team
Foundation Server as Current Source Control plug-in:

 

Workspace

7. Create folder on your PC some where called: SourceControl. This is where all your
source control items will be located on your computer.

8. Open Tram Explore. If it’s not open, go to View/Team Explorer.

9. Open Workspace from File/Source Control/Workspace

10. Add a workspace.

User Instructions

For the first time, you can select Get Latest Version for the entire folder or just the files you are interested in. You need to Get Latest Version in order to check out any files.

Team Foundation Setup Instructions

Change Management – TFS: The Solution Structure

Here is a typical TFS (Team Foundation Server) solution structure in Visual Studio.

First you need to locate the TFS server.

In this example, a TFS server, and some team projects have been set up.

If this is the first time, I’d need to locate the TFS server, by clicking on the Servers.. button above.

Once the TFS server is located, and the team projects are selected, you will get the Source Control Explorer tab where you will see all the projects that you have access to.

The folder structure  on the left is showing folders for different teams. The .SLN file on the right will have 4 projects in it, i.e. the dos project, the SQL project, the SSIS project, and the SSRS project.

Here are the 3 projects in the VS solution, the SQL, SSIS and SSRS projects.

 

Change Management – Release Instruction

Here is a typical release instruction I would create for the release coordinator to release new changes into production.

Change Management – Visual Source Safe vs. Team Foundation

There are similarities between them, but also fundamental differences. Here they are.

Visual SourceSafe and Team Foundation source control enable you to accomplish the same basic tasks: develop more than one version of a product at the same time, change a released version of a product without affecting other versions, quickly retrieve a batch of related files, determine who made a change and when, compare revisions of a file, and move changes from one version into another.

But despite many similarities, Team Foundation and Visual SourceSafe differ in fundamental ways.

Architectural Differences

SourceSafe Explorer and the plug-in for Visual Studio read from and write to a Visual SourceSafe database, which is a collection of files that are usually stored in a shared network folder.

Team Foundation is a client-server source control system that uses a .NET Web service to access items stored in a SQL Server database. Team Foundation source control’s architecture, offers increased performance and reliability.

 

Functional Differences

Changesets

Conceptually, the internal structure of a Visual SourceSafe database and that of a Team Foundation source control server is similar. Both databases and servers are organized hierarchically. Folders contain files. Files consist of versions that are identified by number and date/time of creation.

Team Foundation advances a concept that does not exist in Visual SourceSafe: changeset. A changeset is a logical container in which Team Foundation stores everything related to a single check-in operation: file and folder revisions, links to related work items, check-in notes, a check-in comment, and other information such as who submitted the change. For more information, see Working with Source Control Changesets.

ERD – Re-engineered SalesLogix ERD

Here is a sample ERD re-engineered from a SalesLogix database with lots of customization. Re-engineering is done in Visio 2007 Professional.

Business Process – An Example

BI Corner – Business Intelligence

Can I spell Business Intelligence? Yahoo!!!