TFS Reviews

Version Control: TFS offers both the centralized “TFVC” version control technology as well as the distributed “Git” version control technology.

TFVC is a file and folder based version control system, which includes the ability to check-out, check-in, label, lock, branch, and merge. The security model is extremely granular allowing permissions to be set at the individual file, folder, or branch level (with inheritance as needed). The Git implementation is comparable to other on-premise Git offerings, such as Bitbucket and GitLab. The Git feature set has improved greatly between the 2013 and 2017 (latest) versions.

Build: The TFS build engine allows us great flexibility in how we perform our builds. While continuous integration (build on check-in) is used throughout the majority of the organization, we also leverage scheduled and manually initiated builds. The build workflow is entirely customizable and extensible to suit any need. Out-of-the-box build workflows in TFS 2013 are very NET-centric, however this has been completely overhauled in the 2015 and 2017 releases of the product. The newer versions of TFS can be used to create builds for virtually any technology stack, such as iOS builds on a Mac, Android builds, Java builds on windows\linux, etc.

.NET API: The ability to hook into TFS with custom a .NET code via API calls is critical. It allows us to automate any and all version control and build operations that we need to. Custom tooling which interfaces with TFS is a major component of our DevOps strategy/code delivery pipeline.

TFS sits at the core of our entire software delivery strategy. Implemented and used properly, it provides a centralized place to store all source code and build information for the entire organization. We always know which version of the code is deployed to which environment and are always in a position to support the production code line. Custom automation surrounding TFS (via the API) has increased the number of code deployments we are able to perform 1000-fold in the past 5 years.

Not all of the functionality, which is exposed by the command line interface (tf.exe) is available in the Visual Studio GUI.

New files/folders added to a branch are not automatically picked up as merge candidates requiring merges to be performed at a higher folder level (annoyance).

A broader view of the system-wide TFVC permissions would be beneficial. Since the security model is so granular, it makes it difficult to pull effective permissions for everything in TFVC into a single report.

I have been a user for ten years. I have been a System Administrator of TFS for eight years.

No. I have experienced no system outages in the TFS systems, which I built and configured myself.

Obviously, a poorly configured server/database instance will have stability problems. However, there is extensive public guidance provided by Microsoft on setup, upgrades, and migrations.

No. However, my user base has always been relatively small:100–200 users.

Excellent. Every ticket which I have submitted to Microsoft Premier support has been responded to very quickly. I have been put in touch with very knowledgeable engineers, and reached a resolution quickly. Post-incident follow-ups and surveys are also performed to ensure that customers have a quality experience.

No.

It really depends on your use case. For a sandbox, you can have TFS up and running with a SQL Express instance in about 1 hour. That’s not a production-ready system, though.

Performing initial (first-time) setups is fairly straightforward – getting properly spec’ed servers/database instances, following the install guide. Performing upgrade/migrations can be complex depending on how much customization that you have to the product and what has changed between versions. If you have a lot of customization, then the upgrades are going to be complicated.

Use the Microsoft recommended “seat-based” licensing model. This allows a single developer with multiple machines to consume only one client license.

We recently looked at moving to GitLab. We chose not to do this because we already have millions of lines of code hosted in TFVC and migrating all of that to Git would be a daunting task with very little value. Since both TFVC and Git are now available and since the feature set is comparable to GitLab, we opted to stay with TFS. Development teams can “choose their own version control technology” between TFVC and Git.

Hire a TFS expert or bring on a consultant. Nothing will ruin your development shop quicker than a poorly implemented version control/build system.

Microsoft premier consulting services is very expensive, but they can typically get you setup from soup-to-nuts in three to four weeks. That will include extensive guidance in how to use the tool. Your internal resources should work very closely with any consultant as a learning experience.

I like its MTM (Microsoft Test Manager) section which gives us options to create various test plans and add test cases into it. Once the tests are run or tested, testers can give results. For higher managers, it is really helpful to look at its graph and figure out what is its status.

Another option that I like is linking with other works. Bugs can be associated with user story, test case, etc. This helps us to figure out which work item it is related to.

This really helps in planning our Regression and Functional tests as we create plan and test cases in it. It is easy for higher officials to get an overview of the testing part. Once the team is familiar with it, it’s really easy to work with.

It is completely different than other test management tools. I would highly recommend giving training and brainstorming sessions for the employees before anybody starts to use it in an organization. Otherwise, it is hard for them to work with it. In my current company, I face that situation. They introduced this tool without providing them any training or brainstorming sessions and many of them are not able to use it properly. It creates a lot of confusion. TFS and MTM have their own style of working and they are different from other tools like Jira or TestRail, which are simpler and easy to use.

I have used this product from 2015 onward. I have used its other version TFS 2013.

The product is stable. I have never had any stability issues.

I never asked for technical help. So, I don’t know.

I have worked with Jira and TestRail as part of a different project. They are simpler than TFS. It is really easy to follow these other tools, but TFS has more features and its own unique way of functioning. JIRA has no facility to create test cases, but TFS has it. TestRail is good for writing test cases mostly; project management techniques are more in TFS and MTM. In short, MTM and TFS have more functions. Project management and test management can be done together in one tool.

I have never set it up in an organization. I have just used it. It was really tough for me at the start to use. I never had any experience with it before. I learned by myself looking at YouTube videos. Best bet would be to get an introduction, a brainstorming session, and some follow-up session for the beginners.

I am not sure about pricing. I never got a chance to purchase it.

I never purchased it. No comments on this.

Since I have worked with Jira and TestRail as part of test management, I would strongly suggest giving training to your employees before implementing them. TFS is way different from other tools; its working style is also different. Unless, they get introduced to it, you won’t be able to attain its merits. TFS is really worth it if we can use its advanced features. In order to get that kind of understanding, a training session and follow-up sessions once a while are essential. Learning TFS is like getting familiar with a brand new tool. That kind of awareness is needed from both the employees and higher officials.

All TFS features are valuable. We used the full TFS switch.

Our organization used to use Excel sheets to control the projects. We didn't have any indicator, workflows or rastreability.

For our activities, the product is very complete. Automatic tests may need some improvements.

Four years.

No.

No.

It's good.

Yes. The company chose a different solution basically because of the higher cost.

No. The initial setup is very simple.

The complete switch is very good. If you have the budget, choose TFS.

Yes. A lot of solutions (Jira, Redmine, SVN, SVS, Git, etc.).

If you don't have any impediments, choose a Microsoft Solution. An MS solution is totally integrated.

TFS can support multiple code repositories (example: Git, TFS, CVS, etc.) via plugins, which is really a nice feature.

As I mentioned, it supports multiple code repositories. You can also build CI/CDs out of it. You can instruct TFS to build your .jar, .war, and .ear files and deploy them to to certain environments based on your configuration. So you don’t have explicitly maintain another code repository and CI/CD tools for your continuous integration/build purpose. This also automatically reduces DevOp burden and the number of people maintaining that DevOp work.

It needs huge improvement on its Agile functionality.

For more than a year, until I left the company.

No.

No.

We had our own support member (so I can't rate their support).

Yes, I used to use VersionOne, HP AGM, and JIRA to track and monitor Agile practice in my previous companies. At Lennox they had only one option, TFS.

I wasn’t involved in this process.

I wasn’t involved in discussions of pricing or licensing for TFS at Lennox.

As far as I‘m aware, the company decided to use TFS without evaluating other options.

There are better tools for Agile and CI/CD in the market. TFS may be good for code repository purposes; however, it's not the best for Agile practice.

I especially like the Build and Release features since I mainly work in that area with customers.

It has sped up the build and deployment process. We can now deploy the same application version to each environment in a repeatable and automated fashion.

I think the testing tools need some work.

I have used TFS since 2015. I have used the latest version since it first came out.

No issues with stability.

No issues with scalability.

10 out of 10.

No, I have used this solution for 12 years now.

It was very easy to deploy the on-premise version of TFS. The wizard really helps facilitate the ease of the deployment. The web version is super easy to setup and it takes a little more than 10 minutes to be up and running.

I cannot advise as the costs and licensing vary by organization and the type of agreement that they have with Microsoft. I direct all those types of questions to Microsoft.

No other products were evaluated, but I have setup other solutions for customers.

Don’t wait too long. If you can use the cloud version, it has so much less overhead and you also stay up-to-date on features.

The Test Management features.

It has made the management of test artifacts more effective, thus leading to the improvement in the quality of our products from a testing/quality perspective.

For VSTS, more flexibility around the customisation of test reports.

Over two years.

No.

No.

The Microsoft Tech Support team responded very quickly to the requests we made to them.

As a Test Architect, I have used varying solutions. So, it depends on the direction that the company is taking from a tooling perspective.

It was straightforward with help from online help articles and Microsoft documentation.

Microsoft has different licensing models. Each organisation would have to decide which is best for them.

It was client specific. So in this instance, it was the chosen option.

Do a proof of concept to ascertain that it fits with your organisation.

Reports for user stories statuses, hours logged, burn down charts, etc.

We are able to manage the work more effectively. Everyone has a current status at any given point of time.

Help on the site should be improved.

A year and half.

Not as of now.

No.

Have not reached out to technical support.

We used HP QC, then we moved to TFS because of the client's affinity towards TFS.

Straightforward.

Pricing is better compared to other leading tools.

No.

This tool is good for agile projects, and it has all features which QC provides.

Source control, and work item tracking, from user experience, it is very easy to relate code versions with work items, and to track your changes easily from multiple interfaces "Visual Studio, TFS web browser."

Also, the API for managing TFS programmatically is very powerful, you can listen on work items changes by TFS events.

Also, you can easily create, update, and delete work-items from the code itself.

In addition, you can extend Visual Studio IDE by adding extensions that you can use with TFS API, to extend the work items module.

Microsoft provide a full BI solution for reporting , and analyze the TFS data in order to bring powerful reports for top management

Recent changes/upgrades that were made:

-New software processes was added.
-Ability to create custom dashboards for each team project on TFS web browser.
-Ability to integrate with Microsoft enterprise project management tool, which covers the gap between software process, and project management tasks

We implemented the scrum process in our company, and we used TFS as the main tool to manage that process.

We upgraded to TFS 2017, which has a lot of features for SCRUM process that can be managed from a web browser.

For over seven years.

Yes, sometimes we feel that it need more CPU, and RAMs on TFS server, either we implemented the hardware with the product minimum requirements.

No, it is very easy to scale it up.

I haven't needed to contact them.

I used before IBM Clear Quest, which had a very bad interface, was very expensive as they price per user, was very hard to modify screens, no flexibility to extend, and by the way it can only be integrated with IBM Clear Case source control.

TFS also is one license for multiple products "source control, work item, build management, reports" also it integrates easily with other products, by its powerful API.

Also it is not easy to find an IBM CQ , or an IBM CC consultant, while it is easier to find a TFS consultant.

It is very straightforward.

Excellent, especially if you have an enterprise license agreement with Microsoft.

See my prior answer about previous solutions used.

Try to bring the latest version, TFS 2017.