In my last cloud-related post – Introducing TFSPreview: Application Lifecycle Management in the Cloud! – I covered how you can create an account to use Microsoft Team Foundation Server in the cloud via a cool new service called TFSPreview. In this post, we’ll cover connecting Visual Studio 2010 to TFSPreview and adding a project to TFS Version Control.
Connect!
Open Visual Studio 2010. If you have installed Team Explorer for VS2010, you will see a “Connect To team Foundation Server” link on the Start Page:
Clicking this link brings up the Connect to Team Project window. If your TFS server is listed in the “Select a Team Foundation Server” dropdown, select it. If not, click the Servers… button:
Clicking the Servers… button brings up the Add/Remove Team Foundation Server window:
This part is the same if you’re connecting to a TFS server on your network. If the TFS server you wish to reach is not listed (TFSPreview is not listed here), click the “Add…” button to open the Add Team Foundation Server window. Enter the server name or URL (in this case it’s the URL to my TFSPreview instance):
Click the OK button to proceed to sign-in. Click the Windows Live ID link to sign in:
Depending on your cookie settings (Stay signed in or not), you may or may not be prompted to sign into Windows Live:
Once sign-in is successful, you are returned to the Add/Remove Team Foundation Server window, and the TFSPreview server with which you connected is listed. If it is not selected, select it and click the Close button:
Your Team Projects in the Team Projects checked-list is yet another indication of success! Select the Team Projects you wish to access from TFSPreview and click the Connect button:
If connection succeeds, you are now ready to begin using TFS from within Visual Studio 2010!
Add To Source Control…
Open the VS2010 solution you desire to manage with TFSPreview (if it is not already open). From Solution Explorer, right-click the solution (or project) and then click “Add Solution to Source Control…”:
Select the Team Project you wish to use for Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) and click the OK button:
Check It In!
Once the solution (or project) is added to source control, Solution Explorer indicates this by placing yellow “+” icons beside the objects that will be stored in source control. This indicates TFS is aware of the existence of project artifacts that have not yet been checked in. Right-click the solution (or project) and click Check In…:
When the Check In window displays, you can add a comment to indicate information about the version. When done, click the “Check In” button:
Once checked-in, Solution Explorer displays a blue lock icon to indicate the project artifact is now stored in TFS:
That’s it – all checked in! You should sleep better tonight.
Conclusion
There are two kinds of developers: those who use source control and those who will.
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I signed up to this. Fairly happy with it so far – I’m especially pleased that it uses WLID for authentication.
On the downside, adding new team members was distinctly cumbersome – at this point I don’t even know if I have successfully added a team member or not and moreover, if I have, I don’t know whether they know about it or not.