Iteration Manager feature complete, Public beta available

A couple of weeks ago I posted about a new Visual Studio Add-In I’ve started to work on. Thegood news is that the add-in is now feature complete, at least for the intended feature set for the first release. So far it’s undergone a limited amount of testing by a handful brave persons.

Public beta available
I’m making the plugin publicly available for anyone who wants to test it and provide feedback. If you want to test it, you can simply download it form this link https://skydrive.live.com/#cid=5D46CAE8C0008CF0&id=5D46CAE8C0008CF0!1027. Once downloaded simply open it and it will install itself inside visual studio 2010.


Current feature set
Once installed, the Iteration Manager add-in adds a new menu item to the Team Project menu in team explorer. From there you can access the Iteration Manager for the selected team project and select the operation you want to use.
Iteration manager feature set
Under the Iteration Manager menu you will find this menu to access the different operations Iteration Manager can assist you with.




New Iteration
The new iteration operations assist you in creating iterations. It can assist you with the following:
• Create the Iteration Node
• Create a Sprint work item and set iteration and dates.
• Create a new Iteration query folder, by copying a template query folder, and edit all queries to select your new iteration.

The different options will be dependent on your process template and your configurations.

Change current iteration
The Change Current Iteration operations assist you in changing the current iteration in your team project by editing and changing the iteration filter for all queries in your Current sprint folder.

Configure Iteration Manager
The Configure Iteration Manager options is a place there you hopefully don’t need to go to change anything if your running any of the common process templates. If you made customizations to your team project, or have any other needs, you can configure the different actions the iteration manager performs in the other operations.

Iteration Manager VS Add-In - Testers wanted

Are you tired of copying and editing a lot of Team Queries for every new iteration ? Are you willing to try and test a prerelease version of a new tool ?

Iteration Manager Visual Studio Add-In
I've started transforming a little tool I’ve been using to ease the bourdon of managing iterations in TFS to a full blown Visual Studio Add-In to handle Iteration management. My goal is to release it on the Visual Studio Gallery, during this spring. But before I release it would be good to have it thoroughly tested  That’s why I’m making an open invitation for everyone who would be interested in testing this new Visual Studio Add-In.

Intended feature set
This is the main features I’m intending to implement before official released on Visual Studio Gallery:

• A Visual Studio Add-In using the current team explorer connection
• Automatically configure settings based on process template
• Create new Iteration, optional configurable task:
  • Create “Sprint” work item and set sprint dates
  • Create a new team query Iteration folder based on template
• Change current iteration
  • Reconfigure team queries in current Iteration team query folder

On the backlog for future releases:

• Vs11 version
• “Repair” team queries after Rename of iteration (and areas)
• Recreate all iteration folders based on template
• Integration with Team Portals
• Integration with Reporting Services

Current state
At this moment I have a working Visual Studio Add-In integration with team explorer, offering a simply UI to create a new Iteration and create a team query folder by copying an existing folder and replacing iteration filters in the queries. The next action is to start writing the configuration and auto detection parts.

Interested – Get in touch
If you are interested in testing the prerelease version of Iteration Manager Visual Studio Add-In please drop a line on twitter (mattiasskold) or contact me on IM,you can also dropp a file with your contact information on SkyDrive and Il will get back to you.