Team Foundation Services integration with Git and other new features

Today there was a big step forward in the development of Team Foundation Services - Microsoft's cloud service for developers. For the past few months, the TFS team has been working on new features that make these services even easier, more convenient and more efficient. One of the biggest innovations is the integration of the popular Git version control system with TFS services. Work on this does not stop and in the foreseeable future many more interesting features will be added.

Git support

The development of modern applications is increasingly being conducted by distributed and independent teams that use code separation. This has generated great interest in distributed version control systems. One such tool, Git, received support from Team Foundation Services.
Now when creating TFS projects, you can choose which version control system to use — the native TFVC or Git.
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Full support, integration and 100% compatibility with Git are declared. You can use the improved web-interface for viewing the source code database in TFS integrated with Git. It looks as usual as for the TFSVC database with a small addition in the form of a quick cloning option.


You can also easily view commits:

See the changes made to the code:

But it's still the same Git available to clients from the command line, Xcode, and other existing implementations.


Naturally, some functions of integration with Git require processing of the existing interfaces for interacting with the version control system in Visual Studio itself. Now, when you make changes to the code base, you can also select a branch (branch selector).


You can easily configure important Git configuration options through Visual Studio, for example, the name of the user on whose behalf the changes are being made:



All Git commands and ideologies are supported. For example, local commits:



Pull. Push:

Fetch:

Creating branches:

Resolving conflicts when merging branches and commits:



The remaining features familiar to TFSVS users also remained when using Git. When creating changes in the code, you can associate them with tasks, automatically build the project from the Git repository.

Tag support for work items (tasks, bugs, requirements, etc.)

Currently, Team Foundation Services does not have the ability to modify existing or add new work item fields; this option is available only if you install TFS locally, in your organization.
Tags help to introduce categories into work items that structure them into groups without any additional configuration.
Just write the text to the tag and use it in the work items you need.

Later on, when working on lists of work items, tags will be displayed on the screen, allowing you to quickly filter data.

Just click on the tag and as a result will be displayed only those tasks to which it is assigned.

Test Management

The Visual Studio 2012 product group includes a test automation tool - Microsoft Test Manager. With it, you can plan test suites, test the product, track progress. We have received feedback from some of our clients that in some scenarios the installation of this product into the operational environment is sometimes prohibited and complicates the testing process (the so-called zero impact test experience). A number of new features Team Foundation Services helps in such cases as it has the opportunity to work with manual test plans and the tests themselves through the browser.
In a special test hub, you can see the plans, test variants, who are assigned to the execution plans, as well as their passing statuses:

Also, directly from the browser, you can carry out their "launch" to pass step by step all the tests included in the test plan:


We hope that you will like the new changes and the features of Team Foundation Setvices. Let me remind you that you can try them right now by registering at tfs.visualstudio.com . This service is currently free and will remain free for teams of up to five users in the future. Git support is included in Update 2 Community Tecnology Preview for Visual Studio 2012.