Documents, whether used as requirement specification or meeting protocols, tend to lead a passive life during software development projects. Requirement specifications with hundreds of unknown features and protocols with forgotten tasks are often the case.
Make your documents an essential part of the application lifecylce maangement with WordToTFS. The free tool provided by AIT TeamSystemPro Team to use with Team Foundation Server 2010. Easily synchronize Word documents and Work-Items in TFS. Want to know how?
WordToTFS Overview
Figure 1 – The WordToTFS Ribbon tab
After the installation of WordToTFS, a new ribbon tab is available in Micrsoft Office Word 2007 (see figure 1). Via “Connect” a document can be associated with a team project in Team Foundation Server. After choosing a process template, new work items can be inserted into the document. Choose from any type of work item you like. Figure 2 shows a new requirement being created.
Figure 2 – Inserting a new requirement work item
Additionally, you can define default values for recurring field values, such as Requirement Type, which is preset to “Scenario” in our example. That saves a great deal of effort.
By clicking the “Publish” button, all work items are created or updated in TFS. WordToTFS adds TFS field values to the document as well. The red area in Figure 2 shows the state, work item id and revision of the respective work item. These information are used to keep document and TFS in sync. The document begins to live.
Figure 3 – Embed work items from type tasks into your meeting protocols
The new version of WordToTFS 2010 can be used with other work item types such as Task or Issue as well. You can use this feature to add tasks to your protocols live during meetings. After the meeting, these Word protocols will be synchronized with TFS work items to add them to project plans and easily track their status.
Summary
Synchronising word documents with TFS enables you to use all the appealing functions of Team Foundation Server. Create reports about requirement state and history, trace code changes back to requirements, follow your processes by using workflows, define test cases linked to requirements and so much more…
Tasks and requirements become living artifacts of your project by using WordToTFS. Download now, it’s for free!