Urban Turtle's blog

This week, Urban Turtle was at the DevTeach conference in Montreal.

We’ve met a lot of interesting people and TFS users. One thing to note is that many people are just starting to use the Work Item Tracking feature of TFS and they were very interested in trying out Urban Turtle. They were especially happy to know that they didn’t have to make a full switch from the tools they already know and use, such as Excel, since Urban Turtle stores everything in TFS. Some people even told us that Urban Turtle was the big piece of the puzzle missing from the default TFS offering. We like to agree!

Team Urban Turtle is proud to announce the release of Urban Turtle 3.12. During the last month, we’ve focused on further improving support for the Scrum for Team System v3 process template, as well as adding a few template-agnostic goodies for everyone.

Scrum for Team System v3
Implementing support Scrum for Team System (hereafter SfTS for brevity) proves to be an interesting challenge for us. As we strive to protect our template independence, there are many particularities with this template that force us to jump through hoops in order to provide a compelling solution for SfTS users. We’ve introduced the Direct Links query mode in Urban Turtle xx, to support the various link types found in SfTS. We have also added the ability to configure a Sprint work item type per iteration level, to support the Release, Sprint and Team Sprint work item types. Now, we are adding the ability to automatically link these work item types together via the Implemented-By link type, as prescribed by the SfTS guidance.

The default configuration file for SfTS specifies the relationship between the different link types. In Urban Turtle, when you add a Sprint work item to an iteration, it automatically looks up the chain of iterations to find the Sprint work item it should link to. This is all done automatically, behind the scenes, but it requires you to create the Sprint work items in the expected order. This means that you should first create a Release, then a Sprint, and finally, a Team Sprint. Doing so will automatically link the Sprint to the Release, and the Team Sprint to the Sprint, enabling all the cool roll-up features and calculated fields found in Scrum for Team System. To make things a bit easier, iterations without a Sprint work item can now be quickly spotted just by looking at the iteration panel.

We’ve also added the last missing piece in the SfTS feature tracking work item model: the Acceptance Test. This work item type links Bugs to Product Backlog Items but it was missing from the default SfTS configuration file that ships with Urban Turtle. This means that you can now have Product Backlog Items tested by Acceptance Tests failed by Bugs as suggested in the process guidance.

We believe this extended linking support will be more than welcome by current users of the Scrum for Team System process template as they make Urban Turtle a compelling alternative solution to the TFS Workbench from EMC Consulting.

And the goodies!
Most of our current customers rely on the common process templates from Microsoft: MSF Agile 5.0 and Visual Studio Scrum 1.0. If you’re using one of these templates, you can still benefit from the features added specifically for Scrum for Team System, as every new functionality is implemented in a template-independent way. For instance, you can switch to the Direct Links query mode to add support for custom link types. You can configure the relationship between the different work item types to prevent users from adding User Stories to Tasks. Any feature that is unavailable with the default configuration file can be added by modifying your process template and creating your own custom configuration mapping file. But Urban Turtle 3.12 also introduces a few features that work with any process template and do not require any tinkering with the configuration files.

• Ordering of new child items
  With prior versions of Urban Turtle, new child items always appeared on top, with a seemingly higher priority. This doesn’t make much sense for a lot of users as most people tend to create tasks in the order they believe they should be completed. Urban Turtle 3.12 now sets a default backlog priority or stack rank for new child work items at a value higher than the last visible item.
• Improved Pagination
  Experienced Urban Turtle users know that the options in the Cards per Stack menu on the planning board refer to the number of parent or root work items and not to the number of visible work items. This means that you could choose to display 25 Cards per Stack but actually see a lot more work items because all the descendants of each of the visible parent work items would also be displayed. This could severely impact loading times when accessing either board. Furthermore, there was no Cards per Stack option for the task board, as it doesn’t use the stack metaphor.

  In Urban Turtle 3.12, we have decided to change the pagination logic by applying the Cards per Stack selection to visible work items. One caveat to be aware of is that you will always see all descendants of a parent work item no matter how many there are. However, as soon as we hit the chosen Cards per Stack limit, the next parent is pushed to the next stack. This means that it will still be possible to view more than the selected number of work items, but the count should never get unreasonably high.

  We have also ported the same pagination logic to the task board, including the Cards per Stack menu (renamed Cards per Page on the task board). This should also help improve load times as the pagination applies to all displayed work items unlike previous versions which had separate logics for the parent and the Other Work Items sections.

As usual, we recommend that everyone upgrades to the latest version. We are looking forward to your feedback! Please visit our community support-site to ask questions, propose ideas or report issues. It is monitored very closely by the team and you will get timely replies to any inquiry.

This morning Microsoft started the Tech·Ed 2011 conference in Atlanta, Georgia. They showcase a broad array of technology during the Keynote Address. If you missed it live, the video is available to watch on-demand now here. Even if you cannot attend in person the conference, there are no reasons why you cannot participate remotely. I am very excited to announce that Microsoft will bring the Tech·Ed 2011 Birds-of-a-Feather (BOF) discussions to you with a live broadcast and twitter stream to handle incoming questions.

As a reader of this blog, I am inviting you to remotely participate in the two Birds-of-a-Feather (BOF) sessions that I will lead.

BOF09-DEV Is Scrum better for My Projects?
Discussion leader: Mario Cardinal
Wednesday, May 18 | 8:30 AM – 9:45 AM | Room: B209
Have you thought about, or are you using Scrum as a project management framework for agile software development? Jump start your learning or, if you’re a Scrum veteran, share what you have learned with fellow developers. Discuss the strengths and weaknesses, best practices, pitfalls, and more with in this session.

BOF17-DEV Agile Development: Can it Work for Everyone?
Discussion leader: Mario Cardinal and Phil Japikse
Thursday May 19 | 1:00 PM – 2:15 PM | Room: B209
As software developers, engineers, and craftsmen, we are focusing more and more on improving the code that we write, shifting from mere Delivery to Code Elegance. But our customers typically want the lowest cost, fastest to market option. Whether you are struggling with this issue or your team has found the perfect solution, join us to learn (and to share) how to manage this balance.

Use the following link to view the live broadcast of my sessions. Along side the live broadcast there will be a Twitter widget displaying all the inbound tweets during the session. Submit your questions or comments which will be read to the session participants using the hashtags #bofdev. Anyone can submit a question or comment using Twitter during a session. Simply include the hashtag #bofdev in your tweet

Follow @techedbof on Twitter for more information and up-to-the-minute updates on the Birds of a Feather sessions at Tech·Ed.

Are you attending Microsoft Tech·Ed 2011 conference next week in beautiful Atlanta, Georgia? Please, do not missed this great session featuring Urban Turtle.

DEV271-INT Would You, Could You with TFS
Speaker: Richard Hundhausen
Thursday, May 19 | 8:30 AM – 9:45 AM | Room: B301
You’re considering Team Foundation Server, or perhaps you have already deployed it. You think you know what it is capable of, but do you? Microsoft built in many extensibility points which developers have used to build interesting and useful add-ons. These solutions include tools for managing requirements, product and sprint backlogs, work items, and software deployments. In this session, we discuss the partner ecosystem and demonstrate some of these products. See how to go beyond the out-of-the-box capabilities of Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server without custom development or going to other ALM platforms.

Furthermore, if you want to learn more about agility, here are two Birds-of-a-Feather (BOF) sessions that I will lead.

BOF09-DEV Is Scrum better for My Projects?
Discussion leader: Mario Cardinal
Wednesday, May 18 | 8:30 AM – 9:45 AM | Room: B209
Have you thought about, or are you using Scrum as a project management framework for agile software development? Jump start your learning or, if you’re a Scrum veteran, share what you have learned with fellow developers. Discuss the strengths and weaknesses, best practices, pitfalls, and more with in this session.

BOF17-DEV Agile Development: Can it Work for Everyone?
Discussion leader: Mario Cardinal and Phil Japikse
Thursday May 19 | 1:00 PM – 2:15 PM | Room: B209
As software developers, engineers, and craftsmen, we are focusing more and more on improving the code that we write, shifting from mere Delivery to Code Elegance. But our customers typically want the lowest cost, fastest to market option. Whether you are struggling with this issue or your team has found the perfect solution, join us to learn (and to share) how to manage this balance.

Do not hesitate to say hello, either at these sessions or simply by stopping at the Microsoft booth. I will hang around the Microsoft® Team Foundation Server 2010 demo station during the week.

Urban Turtle users often ask about why they do not have access to the real-time hour burndown introduced in version 3.5. While somewhat technical, the reason is actually pretty simple. Urban Turtle relies entirely upon Team Foundation Server to store any information regarding your project. As you probably know, classification in TFS is based on iterations and areas. Besides the name of the classification node itself, there is no other way to store iteration and/or area metadata. To work around this limitation, popular process templates such as Visual Studio Scrum 1.0 and Scrum for Team System have introduced the Sprint work item type definition. The sole purpose of this work item is to store information regarding your team sprints. Among other things, it lets you specify start and end dates, which are obviously a prerequisite to create a hour burndown chart.

The MSF Agile 5.0 process template does not specify such a work item type. Fortunately, Team Foundation Server is designed to let you customize your project’s template to better reflect your business process. It is therefore rather easy to add a Sprint work item type to an existing MSF Agile 5.0 project. In this blog entry, I will show you how to import the Sprint work item type definition from Visual Studio Scrum 1.0 into an existing MSF Agile 5.0 project.

Prerequisites

Sprint work item type definition
You will need to know the location of the Sprint work item type definition from the Visual Studio Scrum 1.0 process template. If you haven’t done so already, you can download this process template from the Visual Studio Gallery on MSDN. If you install the process template in the default path, you will find the Sprint definition file (Sprint.xml) under ‘C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\Microsoft Visual Studio Scrum 1.0\Process Template\WorkItem Tracking\TypeDefinitions’.

witadmin.exe
Importing a work item type is done through the use of a command-line utility known as witadmin. You must first locate this utility on your computer, preferably on your server hosting Team Foundation Server. If you have Visual Studio 2010 installed, you should be able to launch a Visual Studio Command Prompt from the Start menu, which will allow you to skip searching for the executable file itself. Otherwise, the file can be found by default (on an x64 installation) under ‘C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE\witadmin.exe’.

While this article describes how to use the witadmin utility, you could choose to use the Team Foundation Server Power Tools which Mathieu refers to in his Approval feature with MSF Agile 5.0 article.

Importing the Sprint work item type

1. Start by launching a Visual Studio command prompt (if available) or a standard command prompt. If the former is unavailable to you, make sure to navigate to the location of the witadmin utility. Check the prerequisites above to help you locate it.
2. Launch the witadmin utility by specifying the following arguments:

   /collection: The URL of the Team Foundation Server collection that contains the MSF Agile 5.0 project.
   /p: The name of the MSF Agile 5.0 project
   /f: The path of the Sprint.xml file, enclosed in double quotes.

   For example, using the arguments that match your environment, type the following command and press ENTER:
   witadmin importwitd /collection:http://localhost:8080/tfs/DefaultCollection /p:Agile /f:"C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft\Microsoft Visual Studio Scrum 1.0\Process Template\WorkItem Tracking\TypeDefinitions\Sprint.xml"


3. If all goes as expected, the following message will appear: “The work item type import has completed”.

Configuring Urban Turtle to recognize the Sprint work item type
Urban Turtle uses what we call Configuration Mapping Files to deal with differences between process templates. You can create your own mapping file and configure your project to use it. By default, the mapping files can be found under ‘C:\Program Files\Microsoft Team Foundation Server 2010\Application Tier\Web Access\Web\UrbanTurtle\configuration\project’. We must advise against editing one of the default files as these get removed when uninstalling the application.

1. Start by copying the MSF Agile 5.0.xml file, and open the copy using any text editor. Locate the
   TemplateConfiguration element at the top of the document and change the Name attribute to something like “MSF Agile 5.0 – Burndown”.
2. For Urban Turtle to recognize the new Sprint work item type, you must add an entry in the mapping file, telling it exactly what work item type represents a Sprint. It could be any type, but it must have fields to contain the start date, end date and a description (or sprint goal). Since we are using the Sprint work item type definition from Visual Studio Scrum 1.0, you can copy the required configuration from the default mapping file for this process template and append it to the Features element.
3. The last step required is to configure your project to use the new mapping file. This is done through the Configuration page in Urban Turtle, accessible from the Configuration option under the Project menu.
   
4. Simply select the new “MSF Agile 5.0 – Burndown” and then click the Apply button to save your selection.
   

Using the Hour Burndown
Displaying the Hour Burndown requires you to create a Sprint work item in the selected iteration. This is made very simple by Urban Turtle just by clicking the Sprint Details icon on the iteration box.

Once you have specified start and end dates for your sprint, you can display the Hour Burndown. First, make sure the iteration is selected in the iteration panel and then click on the Burndown button on the toolbar.

Voilà, a real-time Hour Burndown with MSF Agile 5.0!

As you can see, just about any feature that is not available out of the box with your process template may be enabled by customizing your project and creating a custom configuration mapping file. Some of you may recall that we had already shown how to enable the Recycle bin functionality for MSF Agile 5.0 projects. With these features enabled, MSF Agile 5.0 users have no reason to feel left out when using Urban Turtle!

Over a year ago, we released Urban Turtle 3.0, the premier Scrum tool for Team Foundation Server 2010. To be honest, it was a bold move. Four months before the release, what we had was a product that almost nobody knew about, compatible only with TFS 2008. We threw half of the code away, went through a complete UI overhaul and developed against beta releases of TFS 2010, aiming to be ready for the big Visual Studio 2010 launch in April. Strong believers in Agile software development practices, we fully embraced the release early, release often pattern and sim-shipped Urban Turtle 3.0 alongside TFS2010. Over the year that followed, we managed to release 12 updates, one each month. Today marks the day of our 12th release: Urban Turtle 3.11. As always, it includes a few new features, several tweaks and improvements as well as a few bug fixes. Read on to find out what’s new!

Print support
Many people have been requesting for some time now that we add printing support to Urban Turtle. As per the Manifesto for Agile Software Development, people highly value individuals and interactions over processes and tools. They wanted to be able to print work items in an index card format for use on an actual task board instead of a virtual one. This is exactly what we are introducing in Urban Turtle 3.11. You now have the option to export work items to a PDF file. We’re starting with basic support, but we do hope you will give us feedback to help us improve this feature over the next releases. Click here for a sample of the PDF output.

Filters on the task board
We have decided to port the planning board filtering options over to the task board following a customer request. You now have the ability to hide work items from child iterations, to hide items that are done and to filter work items according to their work item type. These settings are independent from the planning board, meaning that you can hide done items on the planning board but have them show up on the task board.

Business value on the planning board
Until now, the planning board view was restricted to two customizable fields. Since one of the fields represented the work item title, there was effectively only one field to customize unless you knew your work item Ids inside-out. Customers have requested the ability to view both the Effort and Business Value fields at the same time, for obvious reasons. We therefore managed to squeeze in a third configurable field and the default Scrum 1.0 mapping file has been updated to display the Business Value for Product Backlog Items.

Single Column Headers
Another highly requested feature or improvement regarded the duplicate column headers on the task board. We used to display the headers for every root (or parent) work item, usually the Product Backlog Items. This took up a lot of space and was considered a waste by just about everyone using the product. This has been replaced by fixed column headers which are always visible but displayed only once, saving up precious screen real estate.

Configurable Blocked State
The Task work item type definition in the Scrum 1.0 process template specifies a Blocked field which we added support for the previous release. We used to consider any value as meaning that the item was blocked, but it has come to our attention that this can prove problematic with other process templates. While this option is still available, you can now also configure a value to represent the Blocked state. We have updated the Scrum 1.0 mapping file to consider tasks as blocked when the value for the Blocked field is yes. As with many things in Urban Turtle, this is fully configurable and can be adapted to your own custom process template by editing your project’s mapping file.

There are several other improvements and bug fixes included in this release. I invite you to review the release notes for more information. This release has been driven by your feedback, and we would like to thank you for taking the time to propose ideas, ask questions, report issues and praise us on our community support site. Your help has become an invaluable asset to our development team! As always, we recommend that you download and upgrade to the latest version. We are pretty sure that it has something to like for everyone!

Tuesday April 12th marked Visual Studio 2010′s first birthday. “It seems not long ago that we had the world-wide launch celebrating the largest developer tool release from Microsoft in many years” said Somasegar about the first year of Visual Studio 2010 in his weblog.

For the Urban Turtle team, the launch of Visual Studio 2010 was an important milestone. Finally, Microsoft was adding the ability to break down work items into hierarchies to Team Foundation Server (TFS). This was a banner feature that made possible the addition of the Scrum process template to the Visual Studio Gallery.

TFS combined with the Scrum process template was the beginning of a solution to turn TFS Agile… but that was not enough. To be truly effective, one must add the right skin through an intuitive web interface that simplifies Agile project management. To meet this need, as a third-party partner, we created Urban Turtle. Today, jointly with Visual Studio 2010, Urban Turtle is the premier Scrum tool for TFS.

As Somasegar states in his weblog:

More than 1,600 Visual Studio 2010 extensions have been submitted to the Visual Studio Gallery, with over 4 million extension downloads by users. Our partners continue to be able to build businesses around Visual Studio, and over the past year, partners have generated over $400 million in revenue from Visual Studio-based extensions.

Urban Turtle is proud to join this exceptional group of partners. We want to go one step further and offer a promotion to all Visual Studio users. During the entire month of April, Urban Turtle is offering a 15% discount to all Visual Studio users who purchase an Urban Turtle license.
You can join in the party and benefit from this discount by entering the ‘Happy B-day VS2010’ promo code at the time of purchase. (http://urbanturtle.com/pricing/)

Early in the design of Urban Turtle, we envision a product so simple to use that one would use it without having to consult documentation. We have partially achieved this goal but we believe we can do better (and, we plan to do better but without violating our motto which is “less is more”). In this connection, stay tuned for the upcoming major upgrade of Urban Turtle (version 4.0).

However, in the meantime, there are training needs that remain to be met. For example, simple questions such as how to install Urban Turtle or how to launch Urban Turtle using Team Web Access are recurring themes. In addition, over time, we discovered that explaining how Urban Turtle support Scrum needs to be more explicit. That’s why we have created a “Quick Start” section on our website.

This getting started section provided short screencasts (2-3 minutes videos) to answer these recurring questions. Because it allows getting “inside” the product to show how small parts work, screencasts work particularly well to a highly-technical product such as Urban Turtle.

On the “Quick Start” page you will find the following screencasts:

• Installing Urban Turtle
• Launching Urban Turtle
• Explaining Scrum in less than 120 seconds
• Grooming the backlog with Urban Turtle
• Planning the Sprint with Urban Turtle
• Tracking day to day work with Urban Turtle

Furthermore, this is where you can download documentation about how to configure Urban Turtle. Learn about the hidden gems that you can access only through the global settings file.

Here is the link to visit the “Quick Start” page: http://urbanturtle.com/quickstart

Hi! My name is Mario Cardinal and I am a team member of Urban Turtle. People here not only helps software development organizations to become places where results, quality of life and pleasure coexist in a sustainable manner but they are also an example of that we propose to our customers. Each of us fulfills this mission in different ways. In my case, I am deeply involved in the Microsoft .Net community. Thus, I was proud last week when I received an email from Microsoft that my MVP-title has been “renewed” for the seventh year in a row. Here is an excerpt from the notification email:

Congratulations! We are pleased to present you with the 2011 Microsoft® MVP Award! This award is given to exceptional technical community leaders who actively share their high quality, real world expertise with others. We appreciate your outstanding contributions in Visual Studio ALM technical communities during the past year.

With fewer than 5,000 awardees worldwide, Microsoft MVPs represent a highly select group of experts. MVPs share a deep commitment to community and a willingness to help others. They represent the diversity of today’s technical communities. MVPs are present in over 90 countries, spanning more than 30 languages, and over 90 Microsoft technologies. MVPs share a passion for technology, a willingness to help others, and a commitment to community. These are the qualities that make MVPs exceptional community leaders. MVPs’ efforts enhance people’s lives and contribute to our industry’s success in many ways.

To recognize the contributions they make, MVPs from around the world have the opportunity to meet Microsoft executives, network with peers, and position themselves as technical community leaders. This is accomplished through speaking engagements, one on one customer event participation and technical content development. MVPs also receive early access to technology through a variety of programs offered by Microsoft, which keeps them on the cutting edge of the software and hardware industry.

As a recipient of this year’s Microsoft MVP award, I am proud to join an exceptional group of individuals from around the world who have demonstrated a willingness to reach out, share their technical expertise with others and help individuals maximize their use of technology. Being an MVP has opened many doors for me as a software architect and (sometimes rather pushy) Microsoft customer and the relationships I’ve been able to develop have added a great richness to my life. Thanks Microsoft

Here is another proof that a hosted TFS is an option becoming increasingly affordable and feasible. We recently partnered up with DiscountASP.NET, the leader in Microsoft ASP.NET web hosting and Team Foundation Server (TFS) hosting. Under this partnership, DiscountASP.NET introduces a hosted version of our Urban Turtle solution which is available to their TFS hosting customers as an add-on. In addition, DiscountASP.NET customers get a 10% discount for on-premise Urban Turtle licenses. Customers can get more information on how to redeem this offer through the marketplace section in their control panel.

We launched our hosted TFS service last year and Urban Turtle was a popular request from our customers. We are excited to partner with Urban Turtle for a hosted implementation of their agile management tool.” said Takeshi Eto, VP Marketing and Business Development at DiscountASP.NET.

At Urban Turtle, we think this is a great solution for teams of all sizes as well as first-time TFS users. Since there is no difference between an on-premise or hosted Urban Turtle solution, the learning curve is significantly reduced.

You can read the Press Release announcing the partnership here

To learn more about this hosted version, visit http://www.discountasp.net/tfs/.