Professional Team Foundation Server

11.2. Work Item Customization and Extensibility

We've covered a bunch of concepts and general information over the past several pages, but now its time to get our hands dirty and delve into this Team Foundation Server work item concept. To do this, we'll help you create a brand new work item type, called the Help Desk Call type. By developing this type, you will get a basic understanding of the XML file that makes up a work item type. While we are intentionally going to make this type very simple, you should be able to build off the information presented here and in the VS SDK, to continue customizing this type to make it as detailed and intricate as you want.

Creating or modifying work item types can become rather tedious, as Microsoft did not ship a visual editor to help with the process. So, you have to make modifications to the XML file by hand, which, for a detailed work item type, can be a little nerve-wracking. You will learn how to make these adjustments by hand, but we will also introduce you to a third-party tool, currently available for free, which makes modifying your work item types, and in fact any part of your process model, much easier.

Before continuing, go ahead and create a test team project called Chp11WIT, using the MSF Agile process model. You'll use this team project throughout the remainder of this chapter.

11.2.1. Work Item Type XML File Overview

Figure 11-1 shows a compact example of the task work item type from the MSF Agile process model.

Figure 11.1. ...