Microsoft TFS

Note:

The Microsoft Team Foundation Server (TFS) Connector requires an additional license.

Limitations

  • The file name of an image must not contain the ampersand (&), backtick (`), tilde (~), or hash sign (#) characters when inserting an image into a TFS rich text field.

  • An image inserted into a TFS rich text field must have a different name than any existing Work Item attachments.

  • If attachments have identical file names, only the attachment that was added first will be synced.

  • Naming an attachment image.png may cause issues if multiple images are copied and pasted into a TFS rich text field.

  • Currently, Polarion does not support syncing of Emojis and Code-styled text from or to TFS rich text fields.

  • Text that is styled as underlined and strike-through in rich text fields is not supported. In a uni-directional sync, this kind of text will cause the synchronization to always show a change. In a bi-directional sync, the underline and strike-through style will be removed from the text in the second sync.

  • TFS 2018: In certain cases, newlines in rich text fields of TFS 2018 items will not be displayed in Polarion. Please re-add the newlines in Polarion and run the sync again.

  • Currently, Polarion does not support the syncing of equations in rich text fields to TFS.

  • Syncing attachments with TFS servers that use HTTP compression (headers like content-encoding: gzip) is not supported.

Warning:

If a TFS project is renamed, the connection database must be updated to prevent the creation of duplicates.

The TFS connector has a single connection database per Connection, Collection and Project Name tuple/combination.

Please contact Support for more details.

Supported TFS versions

  • Azure DevOps (Cloud)

  • TFS 2015 or newer (On-Premises)

Connection settings

To connect to a TFS server, you need the URL of the server and a personal access token or user name and password. Access tokens are the preferred authentication mechanism unless you are trying to connect to TFS 2015. You can create new access tokens in the Security settings of your Profile in TFS. The user must be granted READ and WRITE permissions for Work Items and have the Bypass rules on work item updates permission.

Note:

When connecting to a TFS 2018 instance as a user without the Edit instance-level information permission, where DefaultCollection is not configured, you must use the com.siemens.polarion.tfsconnector.connectionCheckCollections configuration property.

If you do not have the permission Bypass rules on work item updates please set the system configuration property com.siemens.polarion.tfsconnector.bypassrules.enabled to false.

(See the System Configuration Properties Reference document in the Polarion section of Siemens' Doc Center for details.)

Sync pair settings

You need to configure Project Collection and Project to configure a sync pair. The WIQL Query can be used to limit the scope of the synchronization. The expected content is the "where" part of a WIQL query. See Microsoft's Documentation for details.

Sync Microsoft TFS links with Polarion

Both Microsoft’s TFS and Polarion use directed links. This lets you group items in parent child relationships like the following:

  • Item A has a directional link is the parent of item B.

  • Item B has a directional link has parent back to item A.

Tip:

When mapping Polarion link roles to Microsoft TFS link roles use the ID, for example parent, of the Polarion link role and the ID of the reverse direction (System.LinkTypes.Hierarchy-Reverse) of the Microsoft TFS link role.

Unlike Polarion, Microsoft TFS also uses undirected links, where two items can share the same Related role. When they are mapped to Polarion, they are assigned a direction: from the TFS item with the lower ID number to the TFS item with the higher ID number.

Tip:

When mapping Polarion link roles to undirected TFS link roles, use the ID of the Polarion link role, for example relates_to and the ID of the undirected TFS link role (System.LinkTypes.Related).

Sync Item Reference URL as a hyperlink

When synchronizing with TFS you can create a hyperlink to the sync partner of an item.

It is configured with the following uni-directional mapping:

URL for Item Reference HyperlinkItem Reference Hyperlink

With this mapping (left to right), for every item in TFS, there will be a hyperlink to its corresponding item in Polarion.

To have hyperlinks on both sides, you must configure the same mapping for the other direction. (Right to left.)