TFS Reviews

We have used TFS as part of our SAFe Agile Implementation.  Major uses of it were:

• Project management
• Backlog management
• Issue tracking
• Source code management.

TFS was the first system of its type to be implemented in the organization, which helped in managing requirements and multiple teams effectively under a SAFe Agile environment.

• Requirements
• Backlog management
• Project management

Each tool has the option to prioritize requirements in a backlog pool, assigning them to particular teams and particular iterations. The system has also helped in managing requirements with options to attach supporting documents. 

From the project management perspective, the tool is efficiently managing teams by giving management information, such as reports, graphs, velocity, capacity, etc.

More options could be provided from the perspective of requirements management, which would help product owners to use the tool effectively.

Valuable features include total traceability, test management, source control, and extensibility.

The solution gives us support for Agile processes, including usage of board and burndown charts. It provides us with an estimation process to move to formal and test coverage for more visibility and accountability.

• Test automation: There is only integration with the MS framework which requires us to use only a certain configured infrastructure. Even MS is changing this approach as integration should be done on your own (publishing test execution results into TFS).
• Process customization: This is evolving but it is still far behind the competitors such as JIRA WI management, HPE ALM with events model and ability to manage all aspects of integration including VersionOne integration with multiple APIs.
• Scaling for large organizations: There is no predefined approach for handling different types of projects. You need to build out your own way using community suggestions and your implementation resources. There are limited scaling strategies for large organizations with more than 300 users.

We have been using the solution for more than five years.

There were some minor stability issues under a large load or during migration between versions.

For large organizations with more than 200+ concurrent users, there can be some scalability issues.

The technical support has been getting better since 2015, when MS started making more frequent releases, including a user voice application.

Previously, we were using HPE ALM, QA Manager, Atlassian Stack, and small, customized ALM products. The change was made at the corporate level.

It depends on the project/organization size. For a small organization/team, it is very easy. For a large one, the process definition takes more time and then the setup can happen.

If you have an MSDN license for using TFS, it is a good tool to start from. Later on, you may prefer to select another suite. However, you need to be sure about change. TFS, as from 2015, is evolving very quickly including the CI server, GIT server, and code review process with pull requests support inside.

We evaluated HPE ALM, JIRA, and VersionOne.

Look for the cloud version. It will give you an understanding of further development of the product.

We are using TFS for STLC

It improved SDLC & STLC 

The most valuable features of TFS are bug reporting and its high performance.

The overall reports in TFS could improve. Additionally, there should be an easier way to migrate from an older version to a newer one.

In a future release of TFS, they should be more integration and DevOps features added.

I have been using TFS for approximately 15 years.

I rate the stability of TFS a six out of ten.

The scalability of TFS is good.

We have approximately 50 people from our IT teams that are using the solution in my company.

I rate the scalability of TFS a six out of ten.

I have not used the support from TFS.

I previously used Jira. I did not switch solutions, the new company I work for selected TFS.

The initial setup of TFS took a couple of days to implement. The full process was simple.

There are different prices depending on the configurations. There is a free version available. There is no extra cost for the solution. However, the hardware could be something that needs to be considered.

The maintenance of the solution can be done by one or two people.

I would recommend this solution to others.

I rate TFS an eight out of ten.

We mainly use it for source control.

In the past, I've used it throughout the whole CI/CD. I've worked with Scrum and Agile methodologies. From the user story, from the product backlog to the CI/CD and deployment. I've used it for everything — the whole nine yards.

At my previous company, there were a lot of employees using this solution; it was the only system that was being used. 

Currently, there are a lot of products for managing the product backlog. The usability of TFS is not that great.

Integration from an agile perspective could be improved. Jira is far better in this regard.

I have been using TFS for over a decade.

It's is a very stable solution but when compared with Jira, Jira has taken over. The question should be: how agile is TFS? From this perspective, TFS is lacking — the ease of usability is less.

TFS is not that scalable compared to Jira. It's scalable at the story level and at the project level but in the grand scheme of things, it's hard to manage it from an entire product perspective. 

It depends on what kind of program your company has. Personally, we didn't have to deal with Microsoft tech support very often relating to TFS. 

It depends on which point you start. From my experience, problems occur when you already have a development and then you adopt the agile method and try to work it into your source code.

Our IT team handles deployment and all maintenance-related issues.

It depends on what methodology. You can use it for the entire software development process, from the user story to the code and the integration and deployment — the whole nine yards. That's something to be taken care of and set up diligently.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give TFS a rating of seven.

The primary use case of this solution is version control.

We use it for ticketing protecting particular items, we use the dashboard, and we use the Kanban board where you can put work items.

The deployment model that we are using is on-premises.

I really like the dashboards in this solution. They are good for the team, where you can provide announcements and you can organize it the way you want.

I like the Kanban board. It is very useful in terms of seeing who is working on what and what the current status of work is.

I know that they want to discontinue the version control feature, but I like it because for simple applications, it works.

In the next release, I would like them to include integration for various projects, similar to what JIRA has, and they could create this feature on the dashboard. 

If they could create a feature to allow us to see the dashboards with all of the products, it would be useful.

This solution is pretty stable. I have not experienced any issues.

This solution is scalable and it is simple. 

From my experience, we have loaded a lot of work and we have several branches.

We have perhaps one hundred users, but in my team specifically, we have eight users who are engineers, testers, and a few managers.

We have not contacted technical support because issues are handled by the team internally.

We have not used any other solutions previously. This has been the first one with version control.

We have an internal team that handled the implementation of this solution.

I am currently evaluating JIRA. The management is considering moving everything to JIRA.

This solution is simple to learn. It's straightforward and you don't need a lot of time to learn the functionalities.

I would recommend this solution.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

TFS itself is a platform for collaborative development. All the features in it are essential for successful development projects, especially version control, defects tracking, SCRUM tools etc.

TFS SCRUM adoption in our organization was very smooth.

Scrum Board implementation and Backlog viewer require some improvements in order to make its usage simpler and interactive.

I've used TFS since 2007, and the 2013 version since it was released.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

Back in 2007 we used Source Safe Control. When we realized that we needed a generic platform which would combine task and defects tracking with version controlling, we moved to TFS.

I was not involved in the original setup, but the version change was quick and very smooth.

Our in-house IT department deployed it who are very experienced.

We use the solution to store all the code and designs for software version control.

The solution helps us store multiple software versions as it evolves and develops.

All the essential functions of the solution perform well.

The solution's pricing and setup process needs improvement.

I have been using the solution for a couple of years.

The solution is stable. I rate its stability as an eight.

The solution's scalability is a six or seven.

The solution's setup process is quite complex. It keeps updating for new versions, and thus, it becomes complicated to maintain them.

The solution generates an average ROI.

The solution is expensive.

I rate the solution as a seven. I advise others to prefer Azure DevOps as it has better features than TFS.

1. SCM functionalities
2. ALM Features
3. Build capabilities
4. Deploy options
5. Web portal
6. Release management
7. Support for multiple languages
8. Plugins for open source tools, like Sonar and Jenkins
9. Very good user-friendly UI
10. Test management - capturing/creating defects
11. Reports
12. TFS community, APIs, and support

• We have set up a centralized TFS server.
• All the delivery projects are clients for this TFS.
• They are using it for code repository, ALMs, and for DevOps implementation.

1. Customization of build templates - better tools
2. Tracking
3. More friendly on test lab setup (TFS 2013, I did not verify on TFS 2017).
4. More user-friendly on SharePoint integration (TFS 2013, I did not verify on TFS 2017).

We having been using this product for more than three years.

All for my entire development project, the major SCM tool has only been TFS.

Nope. Installation was very easy. We set up a 'multi-node' installation:

• Application tier
• Build server
• Database server
• Reports server

No, stability is fine.

We encountered some issues with the report server part when the service user password changes, otherwise until today have not faced issues on the production environment.

Nope.

Very good.

Very good.

We used VSS and most of our projects are in Microsoft stack. I opted to choose TFS for incorporating DevOps with easy integration VS IDE as there are many advantages.

Setup is straightforward. As I mentioned earlier, we did a multi-node installation.

In-house.

Yes.

No idea on this one as it was done by different team.

Yes, VSS and Git.