Receive Build Notifications

There are many situations when you want to monitor the progress of a build. Some examples include:

• You are a developer waiting for the outcome of a continuous integration or gated check-in build.

• You are a tester waiting for a build to be completed (including results from some automated test runs) so that you can begin manually testing the application.

You can monitor your builds by enabling email alerts, or by setting Team Foundation Server build notifications that are displayed on your system tray.

In this topic

• Enable build notification email alerts

• Monitor build progress by using the Build Notifications application

Enable build notification email alerts

You can register one or more email addresses to receive email alerts when the following Team Foundation events occur in a given team project:

• A build queued by you has been completed.

• Any build has been completed.

• The quality rating of any build changes.

Required Permissions

To complete this procedure, your Edit project-level information permission must be set to Allow. For more information, see Team Foundation Server Permissions.

To enable build notification e-mail alerts

1. In Team Explorer:

   • If you are not already connected to the team project that you want to work in, then connect to the team project.

   • Choose Home, and then choose Settings.

   • On the Settings page, under Team Project, choose Project Alerts.

2. Select one or more alert events.

3. In the Send My Alerts To box, choose Edit to specify who should receive the alerts. Type one email address, or, type multiple email addresses separated by semicolons.

Monitor build progress by using the Build Notifications application

You can use the Build Notifications application to receive alerts from your system tray when the build is completed.

To use the Build Notifications application

1. Choose Start, All Programs, Microsoft Visual Studio 2012, Team Foundation Server Tools, Build Notifications.

2. In the Windows system tray, open the shortcut menu for Team Foundation Build Notification, and then choose Options.

3. In the Build Notifications Options window, select the team project collections, team projects, or build definitions about which you want to be notified.

4. Under Show notifications for builds triggered or queued by, select either Me - <Name of Your User Account> or Anyone.

5. Under Show notifications when builds are, select one or more of the following options: Queued, Started, Finished.

See Also

Other Resources

Manage and View Completed Builds