tfsazure-devopstfs-workitemproject-planning

Using parameters in description of TFS work item types

I am having quite a hard time dealing with requirements and test cases in TFS. Here's the problem:

I want to write a requirement in the following way:

"The car shall have a maximum speed of myParameter mph."

The goal is to use parameters in the description instead of defining the same value in multiple requirements and test cases where it may be needed.

The reason is obvious: I would need to update that value manually in all those work items if it may change for whatever reason in the course of the project. Instead, I would like to define something like a global list of paremeters for my Team Project which I could simply update in case of a parameter value change.

So far, I have not found a systematic way in TFS to handle this. I have seen that there is a "Shared Parameters" work item type. However, it seems to be limited to Test Cases.

Does somebody has an idea how such a scenario may be realized in the latest TFS?

Solution

  • You are correct that this functionality is still missing.

    The only thing I can think of is using a combination of REST Services and Service Hooks to write something yourself. That's not going to be very easy but I think it can be done. It does require a completely custom application.

    This application uses the Service Hooks to listen for new items being created. For each item, you use the Description field to store the parameter description you want to use: [The car shall have a maximum speed of [myParameter] mph.] Every time a new item is created your app receives the event, parses the description field and updates the title.

    The other way around would be a batch update through the REST Client where you load all items and then rerun the code to update the title.

    If you check the documentation at Visual Studio - Extend and Integrate, you will find info about the REST and Service Hook APIs.

    Another new feature that's currently in preview is about Visual Studio Online Extensions. These are VSIX packages containing HTML, JavaScript and CSS that can be installed into a VSO account and can really extend the web access. This could be used to create a front end for managing your parameters.

    I completely understand if this is to much work for your scenario. It is however the only thing I can think of to achieve what you want today.