HP Quality Center Synchronizer Team Foundation Server Adapter Readme

This file provides information about Quality Center Synchronizer Microsoft Team Foundation Server (TFS) Adapter.

Documentation Updates

For the most up-to-date version of this document, see the HP Quality Center Add-ins page. From the main Quality Center window, select Help > Add-ins Page.

System Requirements

The TFS Adapter enables Quality Center Synchronizer users to synchronize data between Quality Center defects and TFS work items. For information on installation and system requirements for the Synchronizer, refer to the HP Quality Center Synchronizer Installation Guide.

For detailed information on working with the Synchronizer, refer to the HP Quality Center Synchronizer User Guide.

Installation Instructions

Prerequisite: Before installing the TFS Adapter, you must have Microsoft Visual Studio Team Explorer 2008 or 2010 installed, depending on the TFS version with which you are working. For information on installing Team Explorer, refer to the Microsoft TFS documentation.

Prerequisite: Make sure that Quality Center Synchronizer 1.30 is installed. For information on downloading and installing the Synchronizer, refer to the Quality Center Synchronizer Add-ins page.

On the Quality Center Synchronizer Add-ins page, right-click the Download TFS Adapter link and save the installation file on your Synchronizer server machine.

Unzip the saved file to a location on your Synchronizer server machine.

Copy files:

TFS 2008 users: Copy the lib and net directories to the <Quality Center Synchronizer installation directory>\adapters directory on the Synchronizer server. (By default, the Synchronizer installation directory is C:\Program Files\HP\Quality Center Synchronizer.)

TFS 2010 users: Copy the lib and net2010 directories to the <Quality Center Synchronizer installation directory>\adapters directory on the Synchronizer server. (By default, the Synchronizer installation directory is C:\Program Files\HP\Quality Center Synchronizer.)

Note: The lib directory already exists in the Synchronizer installation directory. When prompted, click Yes to copy the files to the directory.

Four .jar files are added to the <Quality Center Synchronizer installation directory>\adapters\lib directory; mscorlib.jar, stdole2.jar, tfsCom.jar, and tfs-adapter.jar.

Register the assembly file:

TFS 2008 users: In the <Quality Center Synchronizer installation directory>\adapters\net directory, and run the Register-TFS-Adapter.exe file.

TFS 2010 users: In the <Quality Center Synchronizer installation directory>\adapters\net2010 directory, and run the Register-TFS-Adapter.exe file.

Working with TFS

This section describes how to use the Synchronizer to work with synchronization links between Quality Center and TFS.

Entity Types

You can synchronize data between Quality Center defects and TFS work items, including default, customized, and user-defined work item types.

TFS Connection Properties

The following settings are required to connect to a TFS endpoint. For more information on defining the connection settings for endpoints, see "Creating Links" in the HP Quality Center Synchronizer User Guide.

User name. The user name for a TFS user, in the following format: <domain>\<username>. This user must have permissions to create and modify work items in the specified project.

Password. The password for the user you specified.

ServerURL. The URL of the TFS server, in the following format:

TFS 2008: http://<server name>:<port number>

TFS 2010: http://<server name>:<port number>/tfs to connect to the default project collection, or http://<server name>:<port number>/tfs/ProjectCollection to connect to a specific project collection

Project. The TFS project containing the data you want to synchronize with Quality Center.

Setting Filter Options

When you define a filter in the Synchronizer to be used during synchronization, you can select from both public and private TFS work item queries. Only those queries related to the work item type you selected for the synchronization link are displayed. For more information on defining filters for use during synchronization, see "Setting Filter Options" in the HP Quality Center Synchronizer User Guide.

Field Type Mapping

The following TFS work item field types are supported. For more information on field mappings, see "Creating Field Mappings" in the HP Quality Center Synchronizer User Guide.

Mapping Quality Center Release and Cycle Fields

TFS field type	Field type displayed in Synchronizer field mapping
String	String or Single value list. If the TFS field has a list of allowed or suggested values attached, the field is defined as Single value list with the list of values available for mapping.
Integer	Number.
DateTime	Date.
PlainText	Memo.
HTML	Memo. Field contents are displayed without HTML formatting.
TreePath	There are two TFS TreePath type fields: Area Path field is displayed as String type. Iteration Path field is displayed as Single value list type. Displayed without list values.
Attachment	Attachment.

To map a Quality Center cycle field, you must also map the corresponding release field. For example, if you map the Target Cycle field, you must also map the Target Release field.

TFS includes a hierarchical field called Iteration Path, which can be considered a combination of the Quality Center release and cycle fields. To successfully map these fields, do the following:

Add an additional field for release to TFS and map it to the Quality Center release field.

Use a flat (non-hierarchical) list of iterations in the TFS Iteration Path field.

For more information on mapping release and cycle fields, see "Guidelines for Mapping Release and Cycle Fields" in the HP Quality Center Synchronizer User Guide.

Sample Field Mapping

You can import field mappings from a sample file included with the TFS adapter installation file. Navigate to the location on your Synchronizer server machine containing the unzipped installation file. In the samples directory, select a sample file from which to import field mappings. For more information on importing field mappings, see "Mapping Endpoint Fields" in the HP Quality Center Synchronizer User Guide.

Notes and Limitations

General

By default, a TFS work item has a 4MB limit for attachments. For information on increasing this size limit, refer to the Microsoft TFS documentation.

HTML formatting is synchronized between TFS and Quality Center as plain text with line breaks. This may cause all formatting to be deleted when a field value in one endpoint is overwritten with data from the other endpoint.

Work items that have more than one attachment with the same name are not synchronized.

A maximum of 50 filters are available in the Synchronizer filter list for an endpoint.

Before starting to synchronize data between Quality Center and TFS, it is recommended to review naming restrictions for Team Foundation Server. For more information, refer to the Microsoft TFS documentation.

TFS 2010: Queries of type Flat List only are supported for synchronization. Hierarchical queries are not supported.

Fields

TFS Double and History field types are not supported.

The TFS History field is not available for mapping and is not displayed in the list of fields available for mapping between the endpoints.

Multi value list fields are not supported for mapping between Quality Center and TFS. These are not default TFS fields, and are available only through customization. Multi value list fields are handled as String or List fields in mappings.

Date fields that are calculated by TFS, such as Created Date or Closed Date, are read-only and cannot be modified by the Synchronizer.

Some TFS fields, such as the Reason field, are based on the values of other fields. Synchronizing a different or illegal value to these fields results in errors.

Some fields that are available in the TFS field schema displayed in the Synchronizer Field Mapping tab are not visible for all work item types in the TFS Team Explorer user interface. These fields are available in the TFS grid view.

Mapping the TFS State field: Based on TFS workflow, specific values of the State field may cause other fields to become required fields in TFS. Note that these additional fields do not appear as required in the TFS field schema displayed in the Synchronizer Field Mapping tab. If the additional fields are not mapped and do not have default values, synchronization of the records fails. For example, suppose the Quality Center Status field is mapped to the TFS State field. During synchronization, the value Fixed is assigned to the State field. This causes the Proposed Fix field to become a required field. If the Proposed Fix field is not mapped, synchronization of the record fails.

List fields containing more than 50 values are available for mapping in the Synchronizer without the list values.

User list fields are available for mapping in the Synchronizer without the list values.

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