Cloning one team project's customized MSF for Agile 6.1 template into anther team project

Question

Hello, I recently created a new team "RQ" team project choosing to use MSF for Agile 6.1.  I then went ahead and customized our work item types a bit, such as adding some new work item types and mapping some custom work item states so they would show on the new Task Board.  All of the new TFS 2012 features in this team project work as expected.

We had an existing team project "Platform" on MSF for Agile 5.0, which was not able to be automatically updated to 6.1.  The team had started using TFS for a bit half heartedly, then left it.  Now with the TFS 2012 upgrade and the new features they want to give it another shot.  Since their project couldn't be updated automatically (via the Configure Features on the Web Access), and they didn't care about any existing data in there, I imported the default MSF for Agile 6.1 work item types and config files (Categories.xml, CommonProcessConfig.xml, AgileProcessConfig.xml, and GlobalWorkflow.xml) overtop of their existing ones.  The team project was then able to be automatically updated and the new features worked (e.g. Task Board).

We wanted to essentially clone the RQ team project's template into the Platform team project so that it could take advantage of the customizations we have made to the RQ team project.  So I exported the RQ work item type definitions and config and imported them into the Platform project.  Now when I try and access the Task Board in the Platform project though I get the error message: "TF400917: The current configuration is not valid for this feature. This feature cannot be used until you correct the configuration."

This error message isn't very helpful.  I'm confused at why the templates and config work fine fo r the one team project, but not for the other.  From what I can see only the work item type definitions reference the team project name, and that is just to determine where in the GlobalList to pull some values from.  Are there other config files that I am missing but should be exporting from the RQ team project into the Platform team project?  Or am I going about this all wrong and there is a different more approved approach to my problem?

Any suggestions are appreciated.  Thanks.

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- Dan - "Can't never could do anything"

Answer 1

Hi,

Thanks for your post!

If your team project was created using a process template other than those provided by Visual Studio Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) or you have customized the type definitions for work items or modified their workflow, you may need to customize one of the definition files for process configuration.

The following elements determine which work items appear on the task board page.

• Backlog items correspond to those types of work items assigned to the Requirements Category. Only backlog items that have been assigned to the current iteration or that have tasks that have been assigned to the current iteration appear on the task board. They can be in any workflow state.

• Task items that can be added as child tasks to the backlog items correspond to the types of work items assigned to the Task Category.

  Only tasks that have been assigned to the current iteration appear on the task board.

  Tasks appear under the column heading of their workflow state. As you drag and drop the tasks from one column to another, the state field is automatically updated.

I recommend you verify if the cutomed templates which you copy to Platform team project is met the above conditions.

Hope it helps!

Best Regards,

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Cathy Kong
MSDN Community Support | Feedback to us
Develop and promote your apps in Windows Store
Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help and unmark them if they provide no help.

Answer 2

Hi,

A very good walkthrough is available on MSDN on how to upgrade existing customized process template artifacts to 2012. As Cathy mentioned, it is not just a matter of uploading your Work Item Templates. There is a strong interaction between the AgileConfiguration.xml, CommonConfiguration.xml and the Work Item Types. Please review the following walkthrough;

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/vstudio/ms194972.aspx

Probably some fields are missing which are referenced in the Agile- or CommonConfiguration.

If you can't figure it out, please provide us with a download of your customized process template, so we can analyze it.

Kind regards,

Fokko

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ALM/TFS Consultant, Software Developer C#.NET, SQL Server specialist at Delta-N BV (http://www.delta-n.nl)

Answer 3

Thanks for the responses guys.  So from what I've read so far on the links you provided, instead of me simply exporting the work item types, AgileConfiguration.xml, CommonConfiguration.xml, and Categories.xml from my RQ project and importing them into the Platform project, I should instead be downloading my entire process template of the RQ team project, and then uploading it, and then switch the existing Platform team project use this new process template.  Does this sound correct? 

I can't find how to download my existing RQ team project's customized process template.  Or do I have to just download the default "MSF for Agile Software Development 6.1" process template and then manually apply our customizations to it.  And then once I've uploaded the new process template, how do I specify that the existing Platform team project should switch to use this new process template?  I don't see any options to do these commands from the VS 2012 Team Explorer GUI or the witadmin.exe command line.

Am I on the right track?  Thanks guys, I really appreciate your help with this.

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- Dan - "Can't never could do anything"

Answer 4

Hmmmm, after reading a bit more, it doesn't sound like you can just change the entire process template of an existing team project; you need to customize each piece separately like I was doing (e.g. work item types, agile configuration, etc.).  So it sounds like maybe I was on the right path originally?  I just find it strange that doing a straight export of the RQ work item types and configs and importing them into the Platform team project doesn't work, since the same settings work in the RQ team project.  There must be another config xml file that needs to be changed outside of Categories.xml, CommonProcessConfig.xml, AgileProcessConfig.xml, and GlobalWorkflow.xml.  Suggestions?  Thanks guys.

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- Dan - "Can't never could do anything"

Answer 5

Hi,

Thanks for your feedback!

I am trying to involve someone familiar with this topic to further look at this issue. There might be some time delay. Appreciate your patience.
 
Thank you for your understanding and support.

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Cathy Kong
MSDN Community Support | Feedback to us
Develop and promote your apps in Windows Store
Please remember to mark the replies as answers if they help and unmark them if they provide no help.

Answer 6

What you understand is correct. We could not change process template of existing team project. We can only customize its workitem template. In your case, now that the user of old team project doesn't care about data, you'd better create a new team project base on latest process template. If they need data like workitems and source files, you're able to migrate them over to new team project as well.

thanks

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Forrest Guo | MSDN Community Support | Feedback to manager

Answer 7

Hi Forrest, this is actually what I did for our "RQ" team project.  It used to be called "RQ4TeamProject", but I created the new "RQ" team project and migrated the source code and open work items over to it.  I actually have several team projects that I need to upgrade to the new Agile 6.1 process template (they are still on v5.0); and some of them have been using TFS for a long time and have a lot of data.  I would rather simply apply the new templates than have to create new team projects (since we would still want to keep the old team projects around for historical purposes, and it's not possible to rename a team project, so it would add a lot of clutter and confusion to the team project collection).

Can you think of any reason why simply exporting the work items and config files from a working team project to another team project does not work?  Or do you know how I can get a more helpful error message other than "TF400917: The current configuration is not valid for this feature. This feature cannot be used until you correct the configuration."? Thanks.

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- Dan - "Can't never could do anything"

Answer 8

What make the difference between subsequent versions of process template? As TFS evolves, new features are introduced, new process template make these new features available to users. e.g. in Agile 6.1, code review request becomes a workitem type. It could not be imported to old process template. Similary, even a workitem type exists in both old and new process templates, there may be new features get them incompatible. In addition to potential UI change, the workflow may change as well. Does the reason make sense?

thanks.

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Forrest Guo | MSDN Community Support | Feedback to manager

Answer 9

Hey guys, thanks for all of your help.  I found the problem, and it turns out I'm an idiot.  So instead of manually exporting the wit definitions and configs from RQ and importing them into the Platform project, I had written a script to do it.  Turns out I had missed updating one variable in my script, so it was exporting everything properly, but on the import it was only importing the wit definitions into the Platform team project; the config files were just being imported back into the RQ project and not the Platform project. BAH!  Sorry for wasting your guys' time :$

But hopefully others will still find this post helpful in the future by knowing that you can effectively clone one team project's work item template into another team project by exporting and importing the work item type definitions and the config files (Categories.xml, CommonProcessConfig.xml, AgileProcessConfig.xml, and GlobalWorkflow.xml).

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- Dan - "Can't never could do anything"