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Many times a custom tool that is created to overcome a particular “issue” ends up morphing into something that is greater than the initial idea. Case in point, I had come across many instances where the sheer bulk of Sprint Backlog Items that had to be entered in to TFS almost made me break out in to a cold sweat – it is an arduous task to do it via the Team Explorer Window when you are doing the entries one by one:

TFS Sprint Backlog Item

So, typically for large volumes of Sprint Backlog Items I would prefer to use the Export to Excel capability of a TFS WorkItem Query:

Export To Excel

I could then enter the bulk of Sprint Backlog Items entering the required data in each row (representing each SBI) and then use the Publish feature of the TFS Excel Team Add-In:

TFS Excel Add-In Publish Change

The only issue with this approach is that I’d have to go back and link each SBI in Team Explorer with the correct PBI!

So I created an Add-In to overcome this. At first the Add-In would only pull back the PBI Id and Title and allow the user to type in a new PBI Id and publish the link information, but then I realized it would be great (for planning purposes) to be able to pull back whatever field from a PBI that I wanted. So I created a mapping between the PBI Field name and a Column name that the user would type in to Excel (the red shows the mapping from the Excel Column text; the purple shows the mapping from the TFS Template definition for a Product Backlog Item:

JasPWarE TFS Excel Add-In Mapping

I can then pull back whatever I like and be able to see how it relates to the list of Sprint Backlog Items I have. I also created an informative video to illustrate how to use the add-in.

You can get the latest version from:

http://www.petrellyn.com/jaspware/ExcelTfsAddIn

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This entry was posted by philljam on December 4, 2009 at 14:20 under Development, SCRUM. Tagged , , , , . You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

One Comment

  1. Mostofa says:

    Hi Jamie,

    I have been using your Excel TFS addin and it is a really great tool !

    Thanks for the time and effort that you have put in making this tool .

    I have some feedback though :

    * I have tried to update to the new 4.1 version but it does not work ! I have tried the instructions you have given but to no avail . I have had to thus revert to my old 3.1 .
    * Also I tried to install the 3.1 version on some other people’s computers but did not get the Add-in at all . Do you know why this happens ? Excel just does not show it in the Add-ins.
    * I have also tried to install the 4.1 on those computers but that too does not work . :(
    * I have also tried to pull back the information from the PBIs into the SBI excel sheet. But it does not pull it in as shown in the video. Do you know why this happens ? It can link it to the PBI but it cannot pull information back in ?

    Thanks a lot for the share !

    June 8, 2010, 07:40

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