Do custom check-in policies have to be deployed on the server at all?

Question

I'm asking this question because I haven't seen it documented anywhere. We are using a combination of Team Foundation Server 2008 and Team Explorer 2005.

Is it possible to deploy a custom check-in policy that works in such an environment ?

Obviously, the custom check-in policy contains some code that must run on the client-side (in order to display help, etc.). So it should use the Microsoft.TeamFoundation.VersionControl.Client assembly that comes with Team Explorer 2005.

But, my sense tells me that, in order to be effective, a check-in policy should be enforced on the server itself (for example, to support checking-in changes from the command-line or using the raw Web Services API). So, there, it would have to run against the Microsoft.TeamFoundation.VersionControl.Client that comes with Team Foundation Server 2008.

So, is it possible to build a single custom check-in policy that takes the most recent version the Microsoft.TeamFoundation.VersionControl.Client assembly (2005 on the client and 2008 on the server)?

Or do I have to build two custom check-in policies, one for the client and one for the server ? Would that even work ?

Or do custom check-in policies only ever exist on the client side ?

Answer 1

The custom check-in policies only exist at client-side, and will only be evaluated client-side. If the DLL is missing on the client computer, TFS will complain, but provide a dialog that allows the user to override the error and check in anyways.

Answer 2

No, it's not required. However, it makes things much easier. Using the latest Power Tools you can store check-in policies in source control and have them deployed for "free."

A walkthru with screenshots is on Brian's blog:

....Since the day we introduced those features, customers have asked for a way to distribute custom components like these to clients rather than having to manually install them. Well, I'm happy to say that this new release of the Power Tools does just that!

Due to the fact that downloading custom components and running them on clients can be dangerous, there's a fair amount of care taken and some configuration necessary to enable it. Custom components for a Team Project are checked in to a new "special" folder called $//TeamProjectConfiguration. Let me show you a few screen shots and that will help walk you through how this works....