I like the status email sent by TFS's alerts mechanism when a build breaks. However I would like to send such an email to the entire team and not rely on the team to subscribe to the alert...
Having a hard time producing a nice and detailed enough message by myself when overriding the "OnBuildBreak" and using the MSBuildCommunityTasks EMail task.
Is there a way to force a TFS alert to be sent to a list of emails? Can you recommend of a way to send such status notifications?
Set up an email alias for the team on the mail server, and enter this when subscribing to the mail.
Try the Team Foundation Server Event Subscription Tool. This allows you to send emails to any address when any TFS event occurs.
The July release of TFS 2008 PowerTools adds an "Alert Editor" to Team Explorer. Adding Alerts is a breeze. It has a query tool similar to the Query tool.
Another alternative is to use Build Watcher ( http://agilepractice.blogspot.com/2009/02/buildwatcher-continuously-keeping-eye.html ). It will allow you to continuously list the status of multiple TFS projects on a big screen. This is typically used in the coffee area at work.
In my mind, a open source project named 'Web Deployment Projects' can do this. your can search for it.
I generally like the TFS Build Status Tray by Rob Aquila. Be sure to get the 1.0.1 Beta, as this lets you easily specify the projects to watch using a bit of GUI and also has a notify icon that changes color, so you only need to open the actual build status list when the icon turns red. The 1.0 version had a fixed icon, and only notify toasts in the corner of your screen.
There is also a version of the same tool that is meant to be shown full screen on a wall mounted display for instance.