What's New for Application Lifecycle Management in Visual Studio 2010

In this topic, you can learn about tasks that you can perform by using the new and enhanced capabilities and features that are available in the following tools and applications:

• Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate

• Visual Studio 2010 Premium

• Visual Studio Lab Management

• Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010

• Microsoft Test Manager

• Team Foundation version control

• Team Foundation Build

• Team Explorer

• Team Web Access

In this topic

• What’s New in Service Pack 1

• Installing Components

• Planning and Tracking Projects by Using Team Foundation Server

• Modeling the Application

• Using Version Control

• Developing the Application

• Testing the Application

• Building and Releasing the Application

• Incorporating Virtualization

• Administering Team Foundation

Software designers and developers

• Greater ability to understand and model your application, and make changes that meet users' requirements

• Debug an application faster with IntelliTrace, which is available in Microsoft Visual Studio Ultimate only.

• View how a proposed code change can affect testing by using Test Impact Analysis

• Create and have access to multi-tiered virtual environments when developing and unit testing applications by using Visual Studio Lab Management

• Apply the same life-cycle tools to your database code that you apply to your application code

• Collect and analyze concurrency performance data that includes resource contentions in multi-threaded applications, thread activity on multi-core computers, the state of individual threads over time, thread migration, and other information that uses the Profiling Tools.

Testers and quality control managers

• Create test plans, test suites, test configurations, and test cases with individual test steps by using the new application for testers, which is called Microsoft Test Manager

• Gather diagnostic information when running a test, and automatically add it to a bug

• Record manual test steps and replay them during a future test run

• Create automated UI tests

• Create virtual environments that define the set of roles required to run a specific application

• Execute 64-bit tests

• Emulate various network environments

Version control users

• Visualize changeset merges and branch hierarchies

• Work with labels and resolve conflicts more quickly and easily

• In the history of an item, see detailed information about the effect of merged changes

• Use the new rollback command to eliminate the effect of one or more changesets on an item

Build users

• Deploy a build system for small or enterprise software projects and quickly scale them out as required by leveraging new build topology options

• Make more efficient use of your build resources by setting up pools of build agents

• Quickly define builds that can perform the most common tasks

• Create richly customized build processes that leverage the features of Windows Workflow Foundation

• Continue to use your legacy builds, which are automatically adapted and made ready for use in Team Foundation Server 2010 

• Protect your team from changes that break the build by using gated check-in and private builds

• Enable features such as historical debugging by defining your build to publish symbol data

• View a detailed report about an ongoing or completed build, and then use the report to take additional actions

Project managers and team members

• Define requirements and create task hierarchies using Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Project, Team Explorer or Team Web Access

• Plan and track agile projects by using the updated process template for Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF) for Agile Software Development v5.0 and Excel workbooks

• Create traceability relationships among requirements, tasks, and test results to effectively track how requirements are implemented and tested

• Track progress and key indicators using new reports and dashboards and easy generation of Excel reports from work item queries

Administrators

• Simplify management of team projects that share the same resources and schedule by using team project collections

• Review the status of Team Foundation components, add and remove SharePoint Web applications that host team project portals, and manage team project collections using the Team Foundation Administration Console

• Microsoft Team Foundation Server 2010 and Microsoft Project Server Integration Feature Pack

• Customizing Global Workflow

• Sort, Filter, or Format a Work Item List

• Resolving Schema Conflicts That Are Occurring in the Data Warehouse

Planning and Tracking Projects

• Bridge the collaboration gap between the Project Management Office and software development teams. By installing SP1 and the feature pack for Team Foundation Server and Project Server integration, each team can manage and track the data that interests them.

• Add and update global fields for a team project or team project collection by using global workflow.

• Sort tree lists both in the query results window and in Microsoft Excel.

• Unblock the data warehouse from processing due to schema conflicts.

• Collecting IntelliTrace Information

Developing the Application: Diagnostics

• The debugger now supports Internet Information Services (IIS) Express.

• IntelliTrace now supports 64-bit debugging.

• IntelliTrace now supports Workflow and projects that use Web Parts controls.

By default, IntelliTrace no longer saves IntelliTrace log files (.iTrace files) after you close Visual Studio. You can change the default behavior to enable IntelliTrace to save all log files, or you can manually save IntelliTrace log files, as described in the Saving Log Files section of Collecting IntelliTrace Information.

• Supported Configurations and Platforms for Coded UI Tests and Action Recordings

Testing the Application: Coded UI Testing

Coded UI tests now support Windows Internet Explorer 9 with some limitations.

For more information, see the Microsoft Web site: Visual Studio Developer Center.

Application Lifecycle Management with Visual Studio 2010:

• Visual Studio Team System Database Edition: The features that were formerly released as Visual Studio Team System 2008 Database Edition are now included as part of Visual Studio Professional, Microsoft Visual Studio Premium, and Visual Studio Ultimate.

• Visual Studio Team Explorer: The client application installs with each product in Visual Studio. 

• What's New in Tracking Work Items

• Workbooks (Agile)

• For more information, see the following page on the Microsoft Web site: Agile Planning Tools In Visual Studio Team System 2010

• Creating Relationships Between Work Items and Other Resources

• Finding Bugs, Tasks, and Other Work Items

• What's New for Testing

• Artifacts (Agile)

• Artifacts (CMMI)

• Sharing Work Items and Queries with Team Members

Plan and Schedule Projects:

• Schedule Work, Assign Resources, and Create Task Hierarchies:

  • Create task hierarchies and maintain task relationships in Team Foundation Server by using Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Project

  • View and modify dependent and nested, hierarchical relationships in a graphical view

  • Manage your product backlog and plan iterations with the Excel workbooks that are defined for planning with the MSF for Agile Software Development v5.0 process template. You can use these workbooks to help load balance your team and track progress toward completing project iterations.

• View and Trace Relationships and Dependencies Among Work Items:

  • Track code defects and test coverage with increased integration of work item tracking with Test Manager and Test Runner. This integration includes the implementation of new types of work items such as test case and shared steps and associated link types that are defined for the MSF process templates.

  • View lists of related work items based on their linked relationships by using a direct link query

  • Collaborate more effectively within and across team projects by defining work item dependencies

  • Define one-to-many relationships by linking one work item to multiple work items with a single action

• Better Integration of Team Web Access with Team Foundation Server: Create and update work items; create relationships among work items; view dashboards, reports, and build status; and accomplish most tasks supported by Team Explorer using Team Web Access.

• MSF for Agile Software Development v5.0: The most recent version of the process template for agile software development provides a new set of work item types, link types, reports, and documents to better align with how agile teams work. For increased visibility into the progress of the project, built-in dashboards show if the bug count is growing or shrinking, and the rate at which bugs are being fixed, created, and closed.

• MSF for Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) Process Improvement v5.0: The most recent version of the process template for CMMI provides an updated set of work item types, reports, and dashboards to support teams that are focused on process improvement work.

• Organize and Manage Access to Team Queries: Create team queries and nested hierarchies of subfolders to contain team queries, and specify access permissions to each.

• Managing Work Items Using Microsoft Excel Bound to Team Foundation Server

• Scheduling Tasks and Assigning Resources Using Microsoft Project

Office Client Integration:

• Maintain summary, subordinate, and dependent task relationships in Microsoft Project for work items that are stored in Team Foundation Server

• Roundtrip predecessor-successor relationships from Microsoft Project and Team Foundation Server

• Maintain format and formulas that have been added to Microsoft Excel worksheets that are connected to work items that are stored in Team Foundation Server 

• Use the Undo function in Microsoft Project for files that contain work items that are stored in Team Foundation Server

• How to: Generate Dependency Graphs for .NET Code

• How to: Find Code Using Architecture Explorer

Dependency Graphs and Architecture Explorer:

• Generate dependency graphs from source code in a Visual Studio solution or compiled code to visualize relationships and functional areas of the code. Visual Studio Premium supports read-only versions of these graphs.

• Use Architecture Explorer to explore relationships in the code and focus on areas of interest.

• How to: Create Layer Diagrams from Artifacts

• How to: Validate .NET Code Against Layer Diagrams

Layer Diagrams:

• Create layer diagrams from code to visualize or define the logical architecture of your system. Organize classes, namespaces, code files, projects, and other artifacts in your Visual Studio solution into logical layers and describe their existing or intended dependencies.

• Validate code against layer diagrams to enforce architectural constraints. Include layer validation as part of the check-in and build process so that you can find conflicts early and regularly.

• How to: Link from Model Elements to Work Items

Integration of Model Elements with Work Items in Team Foundation Server: Organize the tasks for updating your system by creating and linking work items with model elements. This mapping creates a strong relationship between the parts of your system that are under development and the requirements they must meet.

• View Where and When Changesets Have Been Merged

View Actionable Diagram of Merges: Starting from a file, changeset, branch, or work item, you can quickly retrieve a diagram that displays each merge of a changeset. You can see both where and when the merge occurred. You can also use the diagram to perform common tasks. For example, you can merge a changeset by dragging the changeset to a branch where the changeset is required.

• Resolve Conflicts between Two Files

Resolving File Conflicts in the Pending Changes Window: The Pending Changes window enables you to more quickly and easily resolve file conflicts.

• Use Labels to Take a Snapshot of Your Files

Manage Labels: The new Label window gives you tools that make it easier to apply, edit, remove, and manage your labels.

• Debugging with IntelliTrace

Debug code faster with IntelliTrace: IntelliTrace, available in Visual Studio Ultimate, improves debugging productivity by reducing the time that is required to reproduce and diagnose an error in your code. Unlike the standard debugger, which shows the state of the system at a point in time, IntelliTrace captures and records what the application does over time. When an error occurs, you can view the state of the system at any time from the start to the point of the error.

Additionally, because testers can record a historical debugging session in the environment in which a bug occurred, IntelliTrace reduces the chance of not being able to reproduce a bug.

• Specific information about other database providers will be announced on the Microsoft Web site when those providers become available. These providers are not included with Visual Studio and must be installed separately.

Support Database Schema Providers From Other Companies: You can add database providers from other companies to manage changes to database servers other than SQL Server. The specific feature extensions depend on the database providers. For example, other database providers might support different types of database refactoring operations.

• Identifying Code Change Impact on Tests

Keep Tests Up-To-Date with Test Impact Analysis: You can see a list of both manual and unit tests that are affected by your target code changes by using Test Impact Analysis. As you run those tests, the test list adjusts to show only the remaining tests. Additional code changes adjust the list of unit tests, as do tests that are running on the server.

You can also predict many potential check-in problems that would otherwise have gone into your build and remained undetected.

• Debugging MPI Applications on an HPC Cluster

Remotely Debug Message Passing Interface (MPI) Applications that are Running on a Windows HPC Cluster: You can use the MPI Cluster Debugger to simplify debugging multiple cooperating processes that are running on a remote cluster. By using the MPI Cluster Debugger, you can easily deploy required files to the cluster nodes, open the remote debugger on each cluster node, and clean up after the debugging session has ended.

• Defining Your Testing Effort Using Test Plans

Visual Studio Test Professional

or

Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate

Define Your Testing Effort: You can easily define your testing effort for a specific iteration in your project and measure your progress by using a new application for testers, which is called Test Manager. You can create test plans, test suites, test configurations and test cases to define the testing required.

• Recording and Playing Back Manual Tests

Visual Studio Test Professional

or

Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate

Record Manual Test Steps for Playback: You can create recordings of actions you perform for a manual test case. You can play back this recording to quickly fast forward through steps in a test to verify a bug has been fixed.

• Setting Up Test Machines to Run Tests or Collect Data

• Using a Virtual Lab for Your Application Lifecycle

To create physical environments, you must have one of the following products:

Visual Studio Test Professional

or

Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate

You must also install test agents and test controllers, which are available from Microsoft Visual Studio Agents 2010.

To create virtual environments, you must have one of the following products:

Visual Studio Test Professional with MSDN

or

Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate with MSDN

For the virtual machines that you create with Lab Management, you must install lab agents, test agents, build agents, and test controllers as required from Microsoft Visual Studio Agents 2010.

Create Physical or Virtual Test Environments To Use To Deploy Your Application or Run Your Tests: You can create physical or virtual environments that contain the set of roles that are required to run a specific application and the machines that you can use for each role.

• Defining Test Categories to Group Your Tests

Visual Studio Test Professional

or

Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate

or

Visual Studio 2010 Premium

Group Your Automated Tests By Using Test Categories: You can now group your automated tests using test categories, which are more flexible than test lists.

• Understanding a Team Foundation Build System

Increased Flexibility to Customize, Change, and Scale Out Your Build System: Whether your organization is a small startup with simple needs or a large and complex enterprise, you can design a build system topology to meet your needs today. As your code base expands and your team grows, you can quickly and easily scale your build system out one build machine (either physical or virtual) at a time.

Additional flexibility in Team Foundation Build means increased productivity for your software developers and testers. For example, build agents can be pooled and shared across an entire team project collection to ensure an efficient use of your build system hardware resources.

Pools of build agents are managed by a new entity known as a build controller. No longer does a queued build need to be stalled waiting for a single build agent to become available. The build controller delegates work to an available build agent that meets those requirements.

• Create and Work with a Custom Build Process Template

Create a Custom Build Process Using Windows Workflow Designer: You can create a richly customized build process by using the Windows Workflow Designer.

• Define a Gated Check-In Build Process to Validate Changes

• Check In Pending Changes that Are Controlled by a Gated Check-in Build

• Queue a Build

Gated Check-in and Private Builds: Build breaks can prevent your team from making progress while you diagnose and correct the problem. You can define a gated check-in build definition to protect some or all of your codebase against build breaks. When gated check-in is enabled, changes that affect your build are automatically shelved and a build of that shelveset is queued. The changes will only be committed to version control if the build succeeds.

Your developers can also queue a private build of their code changes before trying to check them in.

• Monitor Progress of a Running Build

• View the Build Results Window

Enhanced Reports of Ongoing and Completed Builds: When you double-click an ongoing or completed build in Build Explorer, the system displays an easy to navigate and detailed view of data displayed in a rich UI which helps you to perform actions. For example:

• In many cases, errors are displayed as hyperlinks which you can click to view the file.

• Inside the report you can click a link or select a menu item to open the drop folder, rate the build quality, and even delete the build.

• In a graph of recently run builds of the same build definition, for each build you can view results such as, build run time and build success or failure. You can also click a bar in the graph to open the report for that completed build.

• Using a Virtual Lab for Your Application Lifecycle

Create Multi-tiered Environments for Developing and Staging Your Application: You can quickly create virtual environments that contain multiple virtual machines for running unit tests when you code an application or functional tests when you test it. You create these environments from clean virtual machines and templates that specify the role for which each virtual machine is used in your virtual environment. This reduces the time that you must spend to set up machines and increases the time that you can spend testing. You can also create copies of environments without name conflicts by using network isolation.

• Setting Up Test Machines to Run Tests or Collect Data

Use Virtual Environments When Filing Bugs and Reproducing Bugs In Your Application: Testers can run tests on virtual environments, and, when they discover a difficult problem, attach snapshots of the environment to the bug. Developers can then connect to the snapshot of the environment where the bug was found to more easily reproduce it.

• Configuring Your Server Using the Team Foundation Administration Console

• Open the Team Foundation Administration Console

Team Foundation Administration Console: You can review the status of the servers that host the application services and configuration database, add or remove SharePoint Web applications for hosting team project portals, and manage team project collections.

• Organizing Your Server with Team Project Collections

• Create a Team Project Collection

Project Collections: You can group projects that have similar needs or objectives, or that share common user groups, server resources, and maintenance schedule.

• What's New in Tracking Work Items

Automatic Update of Work Item Fields that Store Person Names: You can update the name of a team member in Active Directory, and the change is automatically updated in the corresponding work item fields at the next synchronization. Automatic propagation of name changes is made to work items, work item histories, queries, and alert notifications.

March 2011

Added information about what’s new in Service Pack 1.

Information enhancement.