Share Process Guidance for a Team Project

You can help your team work better together by publishing process guidance in a SharePoint library or on a Web site. If you then link to that library or site from each project, members of your team can more easily find information about processes that they should follow for your projects. If you manage multiple projects that follow the same guidance, you can add a link in each project so that members of those teams can easily access the information in the same site or library. By sharing the same guidance, you must update or customize that guidance in only one place instead of in many places.

If your teams follow different processes for different projects, you can add a link to a different site or library for each project. You can configure existing projects for process guidance by specifying an existing SharePoint library or Web site.

When you create a team project, you can configure it with a new or existing SharePoint library to contain process guidance. If you want the project to use the same library or site as another project, you must clear the check box to create a link to process guidance when you create the project, finish creating the project, and then configure the link to process guidance. For more information, see Create a Team Project.

Required Permissions

To perform these procedures, you must be a member of the Project Administrators group or your Edit Collection-Level Information permission must be set to Allow. For more information about permissions, see Team Foundation Server Permissions.

  1. In Team Explorer, right-click the project name, point to Team Project Settings, and then click Portal Settings.

  2. Click the Process Guidance tab, and select the Enable the link to process guidance check box.

    Note

    If the check box is already selected, you can continue with the following steps.

  3. To use a SharePoint library for process guidance, perform the following steps:

    1. Click Link to a SharePoint document library, and then click Configure URL.

      The Specify a SharePoint Library dialog box opens.

    2. In the Web application list, click a SharePoint Web application.

      Note

      If no applications appear in the list, you cannot add process guidance as anything other than a Web site. Your administrator has not configured any SharePoint Web applications for use with the team project collection that contains your team project. You must add process guidance as Web site instead, as described later in this procedure. Alternatively, you can contact an administrator for Visual Studio Team Foundation Server and request the addition of a SharePoint Web application to the team project collection.

    3. In Relative site path, type the relative path of a SharePoint site that already exists and that hosts the document library that you want to use.

      As you type the relative path, it automatically appears in the URL box.

    4. Click Refresh to verify that the complete path is correct in the URL box.

      If the link is valid, a list of available document libraries appears in the Select a document library list.

    5. In the Select a document library list, click the document library that you want to use, and then click OK twice.

  4. To use a Web site as the process guidance site, perform the following steps:

    1. Click Link to a Web site, and then type the URL for the Web site that you want to use.

      You must specify the URL for a Web site that already exists.

    2. Click Check URL to verify whether the Web site is valid.

      The Web site that you specified opens in a new window.

    3. Click OK.

See Also

Tasks

Add a Team Project Portal

Configure a Default Location for Team Project Portals

Concepts

Planning and Tracking Projects

Other Resources

Configuring Resources to Support Team Projects