Say hello to "TFS". How to migrate from oldes and be "more" agile ?

Question

Hello Everyone,

We've planned to move from Visual SourceSafe to TFS. For this purpose, we brought a new server machine with updated specs and TFS installed. The Visual SourceSafe machine still has its use in the environment as the TFS machine dedicated for a single project.

All the projects are there in Visual SourceSafe machine and are being managed since more than half decade. As I said there will be only one project which is going to be moved on TFS machine. What we required here is a complete and safe image of VSS Working Directory of the project in TFS machine because to Migrate from VSS to TFS you would have to installed Visual SourceSafe there on TFS machine.

What is the best practice to move your VSS Working Directory (project) from machine-to-machine. Is there a way to avoid this step and we could directly move VSS Working Directory to TFS?

Once the project working directory setup on TFS machine, we can use VSSConverter.exe utility to migrate from VSS to TFS. There is an GUI version of VSSConverter.exe utility which makes this more easier than doing this through command prompt.

A Team Project is successfully created with MSF for Agile Software Development on TFS machine. There was an issue in the beginning trying to create the Team Project which seems SharePoint services were unable to start. Finally, we ended up on some blog who mentioned if you installed SharePoint Services after TFS then you have to check the SharePoint Central Administration Services and change its port to default 17012.

This is what we could have done on TFS. Not sure, are we on the right route or not? The ask is not big move a single project from Visual SourceSafe which is an independent machine to TFS machine. But, it is because we all are new on TFS.

The expenses already made, a new server machine, Windows 2008 Server R2, and TFS which let no choice for us except learn and do it. I hope this will become a good experience all in the end but to make it good we have to put more efforts and build attitude to get through this.

I will be thankful if you guys could suggest us on this circumstances how should we plan and collaborate. The best can be this, all this transaction will not affect our productivity on project. We could deliver and managed our deadlines along with this showdown.

Thanks. Have a Good Day!

Answer 1

POINT 1: It sounds like you have already had someone recommend that you migrate all your projects at one time. The reason they recommended it is because it is generally a good idea. If I were you, I would take a second look at migrating all the projects and using switching everyone to the MSSCCI provider for TFS. This will essentially let everyone continue to work just like they do now and with the same tools they use now but the code will be in TFS.

POINT 2: Spend a little time to make sure you want to use the MSF Agile process template. Not because there is anything wrong it with MSF (it's great!) but because it is hard to change templates once you get started. This is the time you want to do a little thinking about software process improvement and how you want the office workflow to function once you are all using the full Team Explorer client. My shop has been using the Scrum for Team System template and we love it. It is especially cool when you add on the Scrum Dashboard web site and the Scrum Sprint Monitor on a publicly visible screen.