Registration Service

Question

We are creating an artifact provider and I am having a hard time finding documentation about the artifact type registration process.  I know that there is a registration service, and I know that I need to create a xml file to register the type.  What I cant seem to find is a description of what the elements in that xml file mean.  for instance, in this section:

 

<ServiceInterface>
  <ServiceInterface>
    <Name>IBISEnablement</Name>
    <Url>http://foo.bar/spam.asmx</URL>
.
.

what is IBISEnablement and what should the service specified provide?  I have the latest studio SDK but I am still having a very hard time finding documentation on how to register.  Could somebody point me in the right direction?

 

Many thanks

Answer 1

Hi,

I do not know where exactly the documentation for these xml elements are. I'll explain core items here and hopefully someone else will point to documentation.

The main service interfaces you may need to use are LinkingConsumerService and LinkingProviderService. I see IBisEnablement is no longer used, and I'll note to remove it from the samples in next release. You can understand these interfaces by "Collectibles sample" in SDK. You can find this sample under "VisualStudioTeamSystemIntegration\Team Foundation Core Services" folder in SDK.

The sample demonstrates GetArtifacts method of LinkingProviderService and GetReferencingArtifacts for LinkingConsumerService. Once you build the WS and registration xml, you can register them using tfsreg.exe tool in TFS install tools folder.

Naren

Answer 2

Naren,

Thank you for your response.  I have been going over the Collectibles sample in the SDK for awhile (btw, the registration xml file was not included in the most recent SDK release).  This example is very similar to what we are trying to do, i just want to understand what the elements mean.  The linking documentation references a document about the registration service... however it is a dead link. 

Answer 3

Hi,

Can you please tell me if you are looking at the Word document describing the Linking Service, or the Help file.  The Registration Service description should be in the Help, but I don't think there was a Word document about it.  I'm the tech writer for the Linking and Registration services, and I'll be very interested to hear of any other serious omissions or problems.

Thanks,

Richard  ([e-mail])

Answer 4

Richard,

Sorry for the delay in the response, I've been swamped with a different TFS issue (now thankfuly resolved).  The document I was looking at is located in teh Visual Studio 2005 SDK\2006.0w\VisualStudioTeamSystemIntegration\Team Foundation Core Services\Team Foundation Linking Service.doc.  This is actualy the only reference I have since I'm not on the actual TFS server I dont think I can access the help files.  One thing that would be very helpful is a description of what is actualy going behind the sceens and how everything ties together.... for instance what the xml elements actualy represent and are used for by TFS.

 

Anyway, sorry again for the late response

-ryan