Managing Work Using Team Web Access

Team Web Access is a Web interface that you can use to connect to Visual Studio Team Foundation Server and collaborate and coordinate your efforts with other team members to develop a project. You can use Team Web Access to manage work that is assigned to you and your team projects. Team Web Access is a customizable Web interface that provides most, but not all, of the functionality that is available through Team Explorer. You can use Team Web Access to enhance team communications, track team processes, and improve project oversight capabilities. Team members who have appropriate permissions can use Team Web Access to find and update work items, work with version-controlled files and folders, access reports and documents, and work with product builds.

Team Web Access is automatically installed and configured when Team Foundation Server is installed. For information about how to access Team Web Access for your team project, see Connect to and Access Team Projects in Team Foundation Server.

In this topic

  • Overview

  • Supported Web Browsers

  • Creating and Modifying Work Items

  • Tracking and Sharing Work Using Work Item Queries

  • Working with Version-Controlled Files and Managing Builds

  • Refresh, Customize, and Access Documents and Reports

Overview

The Home page of Team Web Access, shown in the following illustrations, provides several quick access functions. By using the navigation pane, you can open a different team project, define search criteria to find work items, and organize frequently accessed queries, reports, and documents into folders. You can also open work items that you have recently created or viewed.

Team Web Access Web page

   

Team Web Access Home Page

With the Work Items, Source, and Build tabs, you can create and modify queries, find and view changesets and shelvesets, and manage build and build qualities.

Supported Web Browsers

You can use the following Web browsers to access Team Web Access:

  • Internet Explorer, versions 6, 7, and 8

  • Mozilla Firefox, versions 3.0, 3.5, and 3.6

  • Google Chrome, version 1.0

Creating and Modifying Work Items

Task

Related topic

Open, create, and modify work items. You can create work items by opening an empty work item form. You can also create a work item that is linked to a work item that is open or selected.

You can modify a work item by reassigning it, attaching files, creating links, or by making other changes to work item fields.

Create a Work Item

Create a Linked Work Item

Modify a Work Item

Modify Many Work Items at a Time

Create and modify only those work items that are assigned to you. You can access Team Foundation Server without having a client access license (CAL) by using Team Web Access in Work Item Only View (WIOV). You can only create and view those work items that are assigned to you.

Manage Work Items in Work Item Only View (Team Web Access)

Copy work items. To create a work item quickly, you can copy one that is already in the work item database, and then modify the copy.

Copy a Work Item

Create or remove links between work items. You can create, modify, and delete links between work items. You can create multiple links at a time.

Create or Delete Relationships Between Work Items

Share information by linking to files or Web pages or by attaching files to a work item. You can add a hyperlink from a work item to a Web page or a document on a Web site. You can attach, open, and remove files such as e-mail threads, documents, images, and log files from work items.

Add or Delete a Hyperlink in a Work Item

Create or Delete a File Attachment in a Work Item

Tracking and Sharing Work Using Work Item Queries

Task

Related topic

Share or send work items and queries in e-mail. You can share work items and work item queries by using e-mail or by posting a hyperlink that opens a work item or a work item query. You can organize team queries into folders and subfolders, and you can define who can view, modify, and delete these items.

Share Work Items

Share a Work Item Query

Organize and Set Permissions on Work Item Queries

Track the status of work items, and generate reports. You can generate a list of work items by using work item queries. You can build simple or complex queries to pinpoint the information that you need. Also, you can display results of a query as a flat list or as a tree list that illustrates the linked associations among work items.

Specify Query Filter Criteria

Work Item Search Syntax (Team Web Access)

Organize frequently accessed work items and queries. You can organize and open frequently and recently accessed work items, queries, and reports.

Access Frequently Used or Recently Viewed Work Items, Queries, and Reports

Working with Version-Controlled Files and Managing Builds

Task

Related topic

View, access, and work with version-controlled files. You can view, download, and compare version-controlled files. You can also view annotations and history.

Using Version Control

Find and view changesets and shelvesets. You can find and view changeset and shelveset details. Changesets describe the changes that were made to code before it is checked in. Shelvesets support code review before the code is checked in or temporarily store changes to code without checking in those changes.

Working with Changesets

Working with Shelvesets

View, queue, and manage builds. You can manage the software build process by starting and stopping builds, searching for a build by using filtering functionality, and displaying build reports.

Run and Monitor Builds

Manage build qualities. You can apply a build quality, which represents an assessment of the usefulness of a build, to individual builds.

Rate the Quality of a Completed Build

Refresh, Customize, and Access Documents and Reports

Task

Related topic

Refresh the display, and update the client cache. When changes occur in Team Foundation Server, they can affect the freshness of the data that you access through Team Web Access. You can refresh the team project data cache to guarantee that you are working with current data.

Refresh Your Team Foundation Client

Access team documents and reports. You can access your team project portal to upload and view shared documents, reports, dashboards, and other information that relates to a specific team project. You can also access process guidance to understand how to manage types of work items that your team uses.

Access a Team Project Portal and Process Guidance

Configure your quick launch area and other lists. You can customize the user interface for Team Web Access with various options and visual preferences.

Customize the Appearance of Team Web Access

See Also

Concepts

Create and Modify Areas and Iterations

Working with Team Foundation Clients