Is there a tool for emailing Shelveset's and History items from within Visual Studio Team System?

Question

We are using Team Foundation Server for our source control system in Visual Studio. Although we don't do a lot of pair programming, we do have all of our code changes peer reviewed in a process like this:

• write code
• shelve the code or check it in (if it's low risk)
• send an email to a team member with the shelveset name or changeset number (getting the changeset number requires bringing up the History list for the project).

• team member receives email, goes to Visual Studio

• if it's a shelveset:

  1. bring up the Pending Changes window
  2. press Unshelve button, to bring up the Unshelve dialog
  3. enter the sender's name in the Owner Name text box, and press Find to list the user's shelvesets
  4. searches for the shelveset to find the correct name (usually by ordering my Shelveset Name), and press Details... button to bring up the details

• If it's a changeset:

  1. bring up the Source Control Explorer window, and hit the "History" button to bring up the history list
  2. Locate the correct changeset number, and open the details.

Does anyone know of a tool that would allow us to do one or both of these?:

1. simply select a changeset or shelveset and hit "Send Email", which would either ask for the recipients and send the email, or bring up Outlook with infomration from the item prepopulated

2. upon receiving the email, link directly to visual studio and the appropriate changeset/shelveset item.

Answer 1

There is a rich event model, most of which is not directly exposed in the UI.

In the UI you can get check in emails, but that is about it. The TFS SDK includes information on working, from the command line, with the full event model.

However I don't know if any events associated with shelve sets are included, you can see the schemas for defined events in the folder "‹TFS Install›\Web Services\Services\v1.0\Transforms" on the TFS server.

There are two options on an event being raised, and your filter matching: (1) send an email (with a transform to create the content), (2) call a web service.

Answer 2

Have you tried the latest TFS power tools from Microsoft? The "team members" feature could help.

There's a Code Review module in the latest TFS Sidekicks.

Several other add-ons (free & commercial) are surveyed here: http://jb-brown.blogspot.com/2009/01/team-system-code-review-presentation.html