Magic xpa Application Platform and Team Foundation Server

By now, most of you know that Microsoft replaced the old Visual SourceSafe with a new product called Team Foundation Server (TFS) for Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) and source control.  

The Magic xpa Application Platform requires that a Source Code Control tool be SCC compliant and Team Foundation Server meets this criteria. Using Team Foundation Server as the SCC for Magic xpa requires additional software, however.

To get Magic xpa to work with TFS you need to install MS TeamExplorer which will manage your TFS workspace. You should also install the MSSCCI provider. The provider is downloadable from  MSDN at no cost.

The new version of  TFS is Team Foundation Server 2012 and it is an evolution of Microsoft Application Lifecycle Management tools.  TFS 2012 improves the project manager experience by using a new web interface to show product backlog and iteration backlog.  The Team Explorer has changed to improve workflow efficiency. New Feedback Manager and storyboard features enable better development team communication.

You will recall that TFS 2010 allowed for product backlog and iteration backlog worksheets in the Agile Team Project template. TFS 2012 replaces the worksheets feature and and moves it to the Team Web Access interface. Each project can now be managed in a web app. Also available is the SharePoint portal as in the previous version of TFS. The Team Web Access interface allows  project managers to view and manage each project, iteration,  work area, and team member. It also enables access to reports.

The Team Web Access interface uses Microsoft’s new “Metro” UI look and feel as you can see in the home page below. (Are we allowed to call it Metro anymore?)


From the home page you can see KPI information about the current sprint or iteration such as hours remaining in the iteration, capacity, backlog items in progress, and the sprint start date and end date. A new feature allows you to assign dates to a sprint. The home page includes a burndown chart and Team Favorites, which provides a customized dashboard view for queries, recent source changes and history.

The team concept has also been improved. You can create separate teams within a single project with their own product backlog, sprints, members, and other tracking information uniquely for that team. Because a team is assigned a parent iteration, reports can be run just for a specific team using the iteration filter found on the reports. Each team has its own  product backlog iteration where work items are shown.

A sprint backlog has two tabs, one that contains the product backlog items assigned to the sprint as well as the sub tasks associated to it as well as a view of team member capacity. From the capacity tab itself you can execute capacity planning tasks.

For teams running Scrum and Agile development, TFS just got a whole lot better. Please let us know if you have any experience with TFS and Magic xpa Application Platform.

What is Version control? Version Control (definition)

Version Control: Version control is the approach and methods taken to maintaining access, controlling histories, and recording instances of a software program during its development lifecycle. A version control system is a set of automated tools and approaches designed to manage and track source code for an application. Synonyms for version control system include revision control system and source code control system.

The Magic xpi Application Platform is designed to support enterprise-class version control features from within the Magic xpi Studio when you have a third-party version control product installed that complies with the Source Code Control (SCC) API V1.01. But it isn’t necessary to spend a lot of money on a version control system in order to access quality version control features from inside the Magic xpi Studio. Popular systems that provide this capability include Visual SourceSafe and PVCS. This open approach allows you to work collaboratively, track and access changes to your project, maintain version histories, compare differences, check-in and check out your work as part of a team of developers, and so on.

Version Control is advantageous in all types of programming projects and provides numerous advantages in the governance of a software development project.

Versioning. With version control features you can save versions of your project and access any of the versions at a later date. This is helpful when you want to work in a multi-developer environment. You can also use the Version Control feature as a single developer to keep track and have access to the project's versions.

Project Integrity. Version control allows you to protect your files. With version control features, you first have to check out your files before you can edit them. This protects the source files from being overwritten by another user.

Developer Collaboration.  Version control simplifies team development approaches, reduces communication overhead and eliminates much confusion. Because each developer works on their own copy of the project's source files and is responsible for synchronizing their own copy with the centrally-located version, the team is able to work in parallel and with efficiency.

Analyze Changes. Version control features allow you to analyze changes to your development project over time. You can track changes by comparing different versions of the project and you can trace which developer has made changes to a particular version. This is especially useful for evaluating progress on the project, debugging, and even rolling back versions if needed.