{"id":4371,"date":"2010-12-07T13:06:00","date_gmt":"2010-12-07T13:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.msdn.microsoft.com\/bharry\/2010\/12\/07\/portfolio-management-tfs-project-server-integration-in-beta\/"},"modified":"2024-06-18T12:11:29","modified_gmt":"2024-06-18T19:11:29","slug":"portfolio-management-tfs-project-server-integration-in-beta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devblogs.microsoft.com\/bharry\/portfolio-management-tfs-project-server-integration-in-beta\/","title":{"rendered":"Portfolio Management: TFS <-> Project Server Integration in Beta"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hot on the heels of announcing the release of Feature Pack 2 \u2013 the Testing Feature Pack<\/a>, I\u2019m excited to announce that the Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010 and Project Server Integration Feature Pack is now in Beta.\u00a0 To avoid being repetitive, if you are new to the concept of a Feature Pack, you can read a little more about them<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The TFS-PS Feature Pack is being released to MSDN subscribers today as a \u201cgo-live\u201d Beta.\u00a0 That means we believe it is ready to be installed and used in a production environment.\u00a0 Unlike the CTP<\/a> that has been available for a while now, this is not being released as a Virtual Machine but rather fully installable bits that you can install on your own machine(s).\u00a0 You\u2019ll be able to call our technical support to get help with any production issues you have and we encourage you to use our TFS\/Project Server forum<\/a> to get quick responses to any questions you have.<\/p>\n

What Does it Do?<\/h3>\n

In short, TFS <-> Project Server integration is a server side synchronization\/workflow tool that enables project managers who use Project Server to share up to date project status and resource availability with development teams who use Team Foundation Server whether they use formal or Agile development processes.\u00a0 It enables the two constituencies to work in the tools of their choice and at a granularity that is most comfortable to them.\u00a0 Project managers can work in fairly high level tasks using a long range plan.\u00a0 Developers can see the plan and decompose the high level tasks into detailed assignments in whatever fashion works best for them.\u00a0 As tasks are decomposed and work is completed, Project Server is updated with both resource availability and task progress.\u00a0 Of course, all of this ties into the standard Project Server work approval process so that the project manager maintains some control over the high level plan and changes can be deliberate rather than random.\u00a0 If a project manager wants to deal with all of the detail of the development team, they can configure the integration to import all task breakdown \u2013 but for projects that are very large, it\u2019s likely to be overwhelming.<\/p>\n

All of this great integrated data can then be rolled up across all the projects in your portfolio into high level enterprise report on progress, resource availability and more:<\/p>\n

\"Image<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Image<\/a><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s look at an example scenario.\u00a0 A project manager can start by defining a high level plan in Project\/Project Server.\u00a0 Notice that you can control which tasks are published to Team Foundation Server (not all tasks in a project are development tasks \u2013 even though we developers like to think that\u2019s all that matters :)).<\/p>\n

\"Image<\/a><\/p>\n

The development team lead can then use TFS tools \u2013 Team Explorer, Team Web Access, Excel, the Agile Workbook, etc to break down the high level requirements\/tasks into the development team\u2019s work \u2013 tasks, user stories, etc.\u00a0 This first screenshot is a query run in Team Explorer to show that the Requirements entered in Project Server automatically flowed into TFS, the second shows using Excel to do decomposition and the third shows using the Agile workbooks.<\/p>\n

\"Image<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Image<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Image<\/a><\/p>\n

Once the development lead saves the work breakdown, the project manager will get notified of updates and can use Project Web Access to view task and resource rollup.\u00a0 Notice, the project manager is not seeing the individual tasks but rather a rollup that includes resource utilization so they can do overall resource planning.<\/p>\n

\"Image<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And those rolled up detailed tasks are viewed by the project manager as multiple people working on the same high level task.<\/p>\n

\"Image<\/a><\/p>\n

Of course, if the project manager want a detailed view, all tasks can be marked for publishing between Project Server and TFS and you can get a fully detailed project plan.<\/p>\n

\"Image<\/a><\/p>\n

If you\u2019d like to learn more there\u2019s a great TechEd presentation\/demo done just a couple of weeks ago here: http:\/\/www.msteched.com\/2010\/Europe\/OFS201<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Internal Dogfooding<\/h3>\n

We\u2019ve had a few project teams in Microsoft IT using our TFS\/Project Server integration since May of this year.\u00a0 The feedback has been extremely positive.\u00a0 You can read some of their early comments in the post I did announcing the initial CTP<\/a>.\u00a0 We checked in with them again a couple of months ago to get another good overview of how it was working for them.\u00a0 Here is an excerpt from the meeting notes from that discussion\u2026<\/p>\n

What did we hear?<\/b><\/p>\n