TFS Reviews

We use Microsoft Team Foundation Server as part of our development framework. Most of our development technology is from Microsoft and our primary language is C#, although we do have a number of Java programmers as well.

We primarily use TFS for managing our resources and scheduling. We can also use it to check to see whether tasks have been completed by the team, or not.

The most valuable features are the dashboard and task-selection capability.

The option to save favorites is helpful for managing pages.

I would like to see TFS integrated with a project management solution, such as Microsoft EPM. Right now, it is isolated from EPM but if we could somehow connect it, then that would help a lot. As it is now, the results are not easy to report to project managers, which makes it difficult to estimate both cost and the time to completion.

The interface can be improved and made more user-friendly.

We have been using TFS for about five years.

This solution is stable and we have not had any crashes to this point. We use it on a daily basis. All of our new projects start on TFS.

This is a scalable solution. Our company has 1,300 employees, although there are only between 50 and 100 who use TFS.

Because we are in Iran and there are sanctions, we do not have a Microsoft agent and we have never been in contact with them. We instead rely on various forums and searching for solutions using Google. Using Google is the fastest way to get results.

We did not use a similar solution prior to implementing TFS. However, we did use Microsoft Project for scheduling. It was not specifically for the purpose of software development, but we used it for putting together the steps of a project. For example, first, the UI would be developed, and then the backend. These steps were listed in the project management software.

I did not personally perform the installation, although my colleagues had no problem and I got the impression that it was easy.

Our in-house technical people installed and deployed this solution. There were two of them involved in the process where one took care of the servers, VMs, and infrastructure, whereas the second person installed the solution and gave us the link to use it.

We have lots of servers and virtual machines, with two people in charge of maintaining our infrastructure. One person is generally in charge of installing and maintaining software as was with TFS, and this person is also responsible for the maintenance.

There is a gap between project management, agile methodology, and TFS resource management. If they can fill this gap then it would be a great improvement for us and many other companies.

My advice for anybody who is implementing this solution is to keep in mind that using the tool, alone, will not change the way they develop their software. First, they should become familiar with agile methodology, and then they will be able to properly use TFS.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

Microsoft Test Manager with Enterprise Licensing.

TFS’s test management capability without the expensive licensing has large gaps. Users will be unable to access performance testing and coded UI testing capabilities.

Test Execution will not allow 'on the fly' correction of the test steps that affect the test case itself and not just the run copy of the test case.

Reporting has less depth and cannot report on requirement coverage without Microsoft Test Manager with Enterprise Licensing.

Any improvements would have come on the development side as the organization already had a more mature test management application.

Basic, manual testing should not be only available at the most expensive pricing level. We use many different resources during the testing process, some users only create the test cases, some only execute test cases, and some do both.

Access and permissions are confusing when attempting to include basic manual testing functionalities.

For instance, a user who has contributor and project admin access can end up with no ability to create a test case due to permission level. All users doing any type of test authoring, execution, failure triage or reporting must have the costly advanced permission level.

The ability to export test cases with test steps from TFS to excel, the ability to sync excel changes back to TFS or upload existing excel test cases into TFS. Getting existing test cases in other application lifecycle software into TFS is a finicky, time-consuming process relying on cut and paste functionality.

The ability to see a hierarchical view of user stories with child test cases and the test cases bugs in the backlog

Since November 2016.

There is an issue when selecting multiple test cases for execution or editing that the rows selected are not highlighted in IE 11 and Chrome. There is also an intermittent issue with test modules toolbar icon visibility in IE 11.

I am not involved in this aspect of TFS’ evaluation.

I am not involved in this aspect of TFS’ evaluation.

Yes we are using HPE ALM for Test Management, TFS was purchased to help support the development team

I am not involved in this aspect of TFS’ evaluation.

It's just as expensive as HPE ALM, without many of the features, best used for development tool only to avoid higher costs.

I am not involved in this aspect of TFS’ evaluation.

Test Management is immature for an application lifecycle management tool and it might take a couple more releases and pricing/functionality restructuring.

All TFS features are valuable. We used the full TFS switch.

Our organization used to use Excel sheets to control the projects. We didn't have any indicator, workflows or rastreability.

For our activities, the product is very complete. Automatic tests may need some improvements.

Four years.

No.

No.

It's good.

Yes. The company chose a different solution basically because of the higher cost.

No. The initial setup is very simple.

The complete switch is very good. If you have the budget, choose TFS.

Yes. A lot of solutions (Jira, Redmine, SVN, SVS, Git, etc.).

If you don't have any impediments, choose a Microsoft Solution. An MS solution is totally integrated.

In our company, we develop software applications. With TFS we can manage the whole application lifecycle with a single product, and it is visible for all the team members.

I can point to two basic improvements:

1. The project management. Before TFS, we used Microsoft Project and Excel to manage project tasks and release dates (only the Project Manager could do this). Since we adopted Scrum as a part of software development, we needed an agile tool to perform this task. TFS it is a great tool to manage Agile projects because the whole team is kept up to date with TFS burn down charts, release dates and so on, so we eliminated the need for Project.
2. We can use TFS to perform Continuous Integration, making build operations each night. This increases quality process and prevents code regressions.

Continuous integration in most of .NET developments (web and desktop applications) is ease to configure. But in case of other kind of developments (SharePoint or Xamarin) is not so easy, you have to spend a lot of time making customizations. It would be nice to have some integrations tools for this kind of projects.

I've used it for one year.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

We could find all the required information in Microsoft’s online support (websites, blogs etc.), so I can’t rate the customer service for this product.

We used TFS 2010. We don’t evaluate any other product because we only use Microsoft products.

For our needs, we choose a basic configuration, one single server. In our case it was easy to set up the whole system.

In-house. We have the required people to set up the product on our own, in some cases, it is better to call a vendor team.

The full ALM experience that means you can have all your information in one place. For example having everything linked together – your build linked to changes in source control which link to the work items the prompted the changes in the first place, linked to the tests that were run. This is essential when you work in an industry which requires traceability. However, all this doesn’t detract from the fact that TFS supports and encourages agile ways of working.

The level of customisation on TFS allows you to change any parts of the process to suit any organisation’s need.

TFS replaced a number of separate source control, work item and build solutions that were stretched to their limits, since adopting TFS we have been able to scale the development department without any limits from our tooling.

TFS has aided our agile transformation by providing digital Kanban boards that have enabled teams to be more productive when working remotely from one another.

I have a list things on the Visual Studio uservoice page, but none of them are major. I’m expecting most of the issues we have to the moment to be resolved in the 2015 lifecycle.

I've been using TFS for five years.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

I’ve never contacted the official support channels, but I have received support via blog posts and e-mailing some of the public facing people and each time the responses have been excellent. I’ve been quickly put in touch with developers who are experts in the field and had my questions answered or my problem resolved. I have even helped to diagnose and log a bug against TFS that Microsoft were struggling with in VSOnline.

The decision was not mine, but it was based on having a complete ALM solution instead of just a bunch of systems thrown together.

Setting up TFS 2010 was quite complex, as it is an enterprise product, but nothing too complicated, just a lot of reading to make sure all the parts worked. SharePoint was hard to configure, but we no longer integrate them.

• project Life cycle
• Bug tracking
• Creating test cases
• Executing test cases

As i'm an Software Quality Engineer It's a helpful product because you can provide project analysis from scratch and create a requirements document for maintenance. Also, it creates a strong relation between developers and testers that allows communication between them through analysis, design, implementation and testing, tracking bugs, bugs report, sitting severity and priority and discuss each issue with developer acc. to requirement document.

I don't know of any areas that need improvement.

I've used it for over a year.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

No previous solution was used.

It was straightforward. You can learn how to do it through self-study.

We use the solution for creating a by-log and setting up the IPV. Also, we use it for the two-part deployment process. It helps us with application life cycle management and task management.

The solution's most valuable feature is its ability to build and deploy the package simultaneously.

The solution's server, in terms of deployment, needs improvement.

I have been using the solution for one year.

It is a stable solution. I rate its stability ten out of ten.

It is a scalable solution. I rate its scalability eight out of ten.

I have used a solution called In-House Coding, developed by our organization. 

The solution's initial setup was straightforward. I rate the process an eight out of ten.

The solution's cost is relatively high. I rate its pricing six out of ten.

Before choosing TFS, they need to check the development program used earlier by their company. If they have used something linear to Microsoft, then TFS is an apt tool for them.

I rate it eight out of ten.

Complete integration with VS IDE and Office tools: This give us a possibility of high-level automation, thus minimizing human error.

The TFS is not just a source code repository, but a real and complete ALM solution. Among other things, we use it as a ticketing tool. It is a building mechanism, which is really polished and easy to use.

TFS on-premise does not support integration with SharePoint Online. If you integrate it with the SharePoint on-premise upgrade, it can be quite challenging.

We have been using this product more than 11 years, started with TFS 2005.

Fortunately, we did not have any stability problems. In some versions, we sometimes noticed missed alerts on some work items, but nothing else. Eventually those bugs were fixed.

We are using a single server deployment with more than 150 projects and never had any issues. Of course, some pre- and post-installation optimization has to be done like SQL Server, etc.

Since we never had any real issues, we did not need technical support. For advice how to “squeeze” as much as possible from TFS and how to optimize it, there are numerous forums, blogs, etc. The community contribution is very valuable.

Previously, we used VSS, which was nothing but a repository, so TFS was the logical step up. Since we develop almost exclusively on MS stack, TFS as a comprehensive ALM solution fitted perfectly.

We started with TFS 2005 beta and the setup was quite complex, especially because of all the requirements which had to be met. If you used integrated the SharePoint Services upgrade, it was a small nightmare. Along the way, the setup has become less complex and is now quite simplified .

We use a Visual Studio subscription for every team member and the TFS licenses are included. If running TFS on-premise is expensive, maybe you could consider moving to the Cloud and use the Visual Studio Team Services.

We were using VSS, and partially SVN, but both of the tools were just repository. We needed the ALM solution, which integrated into VS IDE, and TFS was the logical choice.

If you are on MS stack, I can only recommend TFS since it’s much more than just a source code repository. High level of out of box automation, integration with Visual Studio, and other tools will make your life much easier.