What's new for Team Foundation Server

TFS 2018 | TFS 2017 | TFS 2015

You can use Visual Studio Team Foundation Server (TFS) to manage your product lifecycle, reduce risks, and improve team efficiency. Updates are made every few weeks to the cloud-hosted version, Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS). These updates are then rolled up and made available through quarterly updates to the on-premises TFS. To understand the differences between the hosted and on-premises versions, see A tour of services provided with VSTS and TFS.

To learn about what's new with the cloud service offering, see VSTS Features update.

TFS 2018 RC1

Note

The links provided below open related sections within the Team Foundation Server 2018 RC1 release notes.

Work item tracking improvements

  • Project Creation Wizard on the web
  • Process Template Manager on the web
  • Mobile work item form
  • Filtering on backlogs, Kanban boards, sprints, and queries
  • Expand to show empty fields on a Kanban card
  • Extensions block work item save

Version control improvements

  • Forks
  • Setting to turn off web editing for TFVC repos
  • Identify stale branches
  • Search for a deleted branch and re-create it
  • Search for a commit in branches starting with a prefix
  • Richer pull request callout on commit details page
  • Retain filename when moving from Files to Commits
  • View, delete, and filter Git tags
  • Git tags security
  • Automatically complete work items when completing pull requests
  • Reset votes on push/new iteration
  • Filter pull request tree by file name
  • More pull request comments filtering options
  • View original diff for code comments in pull request details
  • Collapsible pull request comments
  • Task lists in pull request descriptions and comments
  • Ability to “Like” comments in pull requests
  • Improved workflow when approving with suggestions
  • Path filtering support for Git notifications
  • Great email templates for pull request workflows
  • Pull Request Status Extensibility

Collaborate feature improvements

Package management improvements

  • Package Management experience updates
  • Maven packages
  • New unified NuGet task
  • npm build task updates
  • Maven now supports authenticated feeds
  • dotnet task supports authenticated feeds, web projects
  • Working outside your account/collection
  • Feed picker for VSTS/TFS feeds

Build & Release improvements

  • Removing support for XAML Builds
  • Export and import build definitions
  • Deprecate a task in an extension
  • Let contributed build sections control section visibility
  • Variable group support
  • Work with secure files such as Apple certificates
  • New Release Definition Editor
  • Visualization of the pipeline
  • In context configuration UI
  • Getting started with deployment templates
  • Improved task and phase editor
  • Variable groups, Retention, and Options tabs
  • VM Deployment using Deployment Groups
  • Task group references, versioning, and import and export
  • Multi Configuration support in Server Side (Agentless) tasks
  • Variables Support in Manual Intervention task
  • Control releases to an environment based on the source branch
  • Release Triggers for Git repositories as an artifact source
  • Release Triggers: Continuous deployment for changes pushed to a Git repository
  • Enhancements to server-side tasks
  • Release status badge in Code hub
  • Enhancements to Build definition menu when adding artifacts
  • Revert your release definition to older version

Test improvements

  • Exploratory testing traceability improvements for work item links, iterations, and area paths
  • Filters for Test Case work items in Test Plans and Suites in Test Hub
  • Test trend charts for Release Environments and Test Runs
  • Markdown formatting support for Test Run and Test Result comments

Deprecated features

For known issues, see Known issues.

TFS 2017.2 RC1

Note

The links provided below open related sections within the Team Foundation Server 2017 Update 2 RC1 release notes.

Work item tracking improvements

  • Work item type icons
  • Delivery plans and field criteria
  • Automatic linking from work items to builds
  • Work item search

Pull request improvements

  • Improved CTAs for PR author and reviewers
  • Actionable comments
  • Updates view shows rebase and force push
  • Pull request filtering by people
  • Reason required when bypassing pull request policies
  • Share pull requests with teams
  • Pull request improvements for teams
  • Default notifications for pull request comments

Version control improvements

  • New branch policies configuration experience
  • New policy for no active comments
  • Files hub improvements
  • Visualize your git repository
  • View git tags on commits
  • Add tags to commits
  • Updated changeset and shelveset pages
  • Improved commit filtering
  • Import repositories from TFVC to Git
  • Git LFS file locking
  • Git commit comments use the new discussion control
  • New tree view control

Package Management improvements

  • Updated Package Management experience
  • npm READMEs and download button
  • NuGet Restore, Command, and Tool Installer build tasks

Build & Release improvements

  • New build definition editor
  • Template search
  • Quickly find and add a task right where you want it
  • Use process parameters to pass key arguments to your tasks
  • Conditional build tasks
  • Built-in tasks for building and deploying container based applications
  • Azure Web App deployment updates
  • .NET Core tasks support project files
  • SSH deployment improvements
  • Install an SSH key during a build or release
  • Tasks fail if Visual Studio 2017 is specified but not present on agent
  • Private agent automatic workspace cleanup
  • Build agent upgrade status
  • Selection of private agents on machines not in use
  • iOS DevOps enhancements
  • Java code coverage enhancements
  • Maven and SonarQube improvements
  • Improved Jenkins integration
  • Azure virtual machine scale set deployment
  • Override template parameters in Azure resource group deployments
  • Multiple release triggers with branch and tag filters
  • Set defaults for artifact sources in a release
  • Separation of duties for deployment requester and approvers
  • Release level approvals
  • Deploy to Azure Government Cloud
  • Set maximum number of parallel deployments
  • Timeout enhancements for the Manual Intervention task
  • Release Management parallel execution
  • Web app deployment history in Azure portal

Test improvements

  • Run tests using agent phases
  • On-demand triggering of automated tests

Administrative improvements

  • Combined email recipients for notifications
  • Out-of-the-box notifications
  • Extension management permissions
  • Getting notified when extensions are installed, require attention, and more
  • Allowing TFS admins to add subscribers to the advanced access level

Deprecated features

TFS 2017.1 RC2

Note

The links provided below open related sections within the Team Foundation Server 2017 Update 1 RC2 release notes.

Process template support

####Git improvements

Test, Build, and Release improvements

TFS 2017.1 RC1

Personal, admin, and cross-team project features

Git improvements

  • Import a Git repository from GitHub, BitBucket, GitLab, or other locations
  • Add .gitignore during repo creation
  • Restart pull request merge
  • Markdown in pull request description
  • Attachments in PR discussions
  • Restart pull request merge)
  • Support file exclusions in the required reviewer policy
  • Highlight the PRs that have updates
  • Branch policy for PR merge strategy
  • Expose merge conflict informations
  • Search for a file or folder in commit history
  • Commit page improvements
  • Search for commits in branches

Code hub improvements

  • Configurable compare branch
  • Find a file or folder in your Code hub
  • Repo favorites
  • Markdown preview button
  • Confirmation for deleting repos

Package Management improvements

  • Release views in Package Management
  • npm in Package Management

Code search improvements

  • Code Search service includes Elasticsearch version 2.4.

Code insights improvements

  • SonarQube MSBuild tasks are now available from an extension provided by SonarSource

Build improvements

  • Rollback build definitions
  • Disable the sync and checkout of sources in a build
  • Git shallow close and git-lfs
  • Task versioning for Build and Release definitions

Test improvements

  • Verify bugs from work item
  • REST client helpers for Test Step operations
  • Update existing bugs from Web Runner
  • Test case description in Web Runner
  • Test hub contribution point
  • Delete test artifacts
  • Favorites for Test Plans
  • Test Impact Analysis for managed automated tests
  • Firefox support for Test & Feedback extension

Cross platform improvements

  • Xcode build task xcpretty formatting
  • Publish Jenkins test and code coverage results
  • Xcode 8 signing and exporting packages in the Xcode build task

Release Management improvements

  • Multiple schedules in releasesm
  • Inline service connections in Build and Release
  • Link build artifacts from another team project
  • Azure resource group improvements
  • Azure CLI task

Deprecated features

  • Team rooms: Several good solutions are available that integrate well with TFS that support notifications and chat, such as Microsoft Teams and Slack. As a result, we have made a decision to deprecate our Team Room feature from both VSTS and TFS. To learn more about this change and the timeline for deprecation, see this blog post: Deprecation of the Team Rooms in VSTS and TFS.

TFS 2017 RTW

Note

The links provided below open related sections within the Team Foundation Server 2017 release notes.

Source control

Agile & Reporting

DevOps

Administration, Marketplace, & Other

Deprecated features

  • Client version of the work item form: In Visual Studio 2017, work items open in a browser window. To learn more about this change, see this blog post: Work items now open in the web from Visual Studio '15'.
  • Lab management: Going forward, native build and release management tools replace the previous lab management tools. To learn more, see Use Build and Release Management instead of Lab Management for automated testing.
  • Microsoft Test Manager: The web portal Test hub is a fully featured Test management solution which works across all platforms and with all browsers, we recommend you use the Test hub over Microsoft Test Manager for all your test management requirements. You can use Microsoft Test Manager to test your desktop applications by launching the Microsoft Test Runner (client) from the Test hub. To learn more, see Guidance on Microsoft Test Manager usage.
  • Project Server integration: Team Foundation Server 2017 and later versions no longer support native integration with Microsoft Project Server. However, third-party tools are available to support synchronization. For details, see Synchronize TFS with Project Server.
  • Release Manager V1 Client/Server: Release Management features have been integrated into Team Foundation Server (TFS) 2015 Update 2 and later versions, and into the web portal Release hub. The newer web-based version is the recommended alternative to the server and client version. For more information, see Automate deployments with Release Management.
  • UML designers: Have been removed from Visual Studio Enterprise client, Architecture features. To learn more, see What's new for design in Visual Studio.

TFS 2015 Update 4

TFS 2015.4 includes Download: Team Foundation Server Update 4

To learn more about related downloads, see the Downloads page.

To learn about what's new and the bug fixes made in this release, see the Release notes for Team Foundation Server 2015 Update 4.

TFS 2015 Update 3

Note

The links provided below open related sections within the Team Foundation Server 2015 Update 3 release notes.

Source control

Agile & Reporting

DevOps

Administration, Marketplace, & Other

TFS 2015 Update 2

Note

The links provided below open related sections within the Team Foundation Server 2015 Update 2 release notes.

Source control

Agile & Reporting

DevOps

Administration, Marketplace, & Other

TFS 2015 Update 1

Note

The links provided below open related sections within the Team Foundation Server 2015 Update 1 release notes.

Source control

Agile & Reporting

Backlogs

Kanban

Scrum

Dashboards and queries

DevOps

Build

Test

Administration, Marketplace, & Other

TFS 2015 RTM

Note

The links provided below open related sections within the Team Foundation Server 2015 Update 1 release notes.

Source control

Agile & Reporting

DevOps

Administration, Marketplace, & Other

You can download the latest version of TFS from the Visual Studio download page.

TFS Express

Team Foundation Server 2015 Update 2 and later versions are free for up to five users, replacing TFS Express. Existing TFS Express users can run an upgrade to the Team Foundation Server 2015 Update 2 and continue to use it free for up to five users. For the sixth user and beyond, CALs must be used. See the Team Foundation Server pricing page.