[TFS] Is it possible (or desirable) for a work item to queue a build?

Question

In our company there are many teams who constantly submit build request work items to us via TFS. I know that it's possible to trigger a build from a check-in or on a schedule, but this is not what we need. We would like for the team managers to be able to create a build request work item in TFS that, when saved, would queue a certain build definition. Is this possible?

I also wonder if it's desirable to approach the problem this way. I'm new to the build team and we are thinking of ways to automate the builds. Is it a good idea? If not, why? How far can you take automation of the build process?

Thanks!

Answer 1

The usual practice is to perform a 'fast' build whenever code is submitted by developers, and perform a 'full' build at least once per day (usually outside of working hours).

TFS also has the ability (with the necessary permissions) to manually kick off builds at any time. You normally have to check the build queue and occasionally delete any queued developer check-in builds if you are performing a full 'release' build.

These sites might be of interest:

TFS 2008: A basic guide to Team Build 2008

Team Foundation Build Recipes

Answer 2

If you've given them permission to add Work Item, why not give them permission to also queue a build?

Answer 3

Answer to your first question is NO, not out of the box. I would argue that firing builds based off of Build work item types is not a good idea. Work items can not be locked down by type and thus you could not isolate the creation of these work items to team managers only.

You can assign Start Build permissions to individuals/groups which would be the recommended way of granting build permissions to your team managers.

To your second question, you can take automation as far as you wish using the team build APIs. MS has made TFS and Team Build very extensible.