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Agile with TFS Presentation Follow-up

Thanks for everyone attending my "Implementing an Agile Software Development Process with Team Foundation Server (TFS)" presentation today. We enjoyed some good discussion. I had a few TFS-related questions pop up which I thought I'd address in a post:

Q. Is it possible to fail the build but only if a specific test fails? So, let's say we have 3 tests. If Test01 or Test02 fail, fail the build. If Test03 fails, don't fail the build.

A. Not that I'm aware of. If any test fails in a build but compilation succeeded, that build lists a state of Partially Succeeded. With TFS 2008 SP1, we received a property to modify or control this behavior: TreatTestFailureAsBuildFailure. If true (false is the default), any test failure will set the build state to Failed (vs. Partially Succeeded). Nice write-up here.

You might take the approach of creating two separate builds: one that contains all your tests and one containing just mission critical tests. Set TreatTestFailureAsBuildFailure to true for that one and any test failure will fail the build. Not precisely what you want but close. It may also be beneficial or helpful to check the TestSuccess output parameter.

Q. Can I move a Work Item from one team project to another (prefer not to copy...delete)?

A. Unfortunately, no. One can use the TFS Migration Tool but it's a bit heavy. We typically copy to the destination team project and then Close the source work item. For one client, we even developed a desktop triage application to programmatically copy and then delete defects and task requests between team projects. The client wanted to triage out of one team project and then distribute the work item to the correct team [project].

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