We have decided to switch from JIRA to TFS 2012 for its project management features, particularly requirements management and test management. We have an existing familiarity with Subversion and CruiseControl.NET, so we would like to continue to use those tools, but my question is “What integration features will we be giving up if we opt out of the built-in TFS version control and build server management?“
For example, we would like to be able to associate version control changesets with TFS work items. Is that still possible with SVN?
TFS has great integration with itself, but not much else. It’s one of its killer features compared to other solutions. TFS does have a great API, unfortunately I haven’t seen many people use it, or at least if they do they don’t publish what they have done.
Work items can be linked to anything that supports urls, so you could still probably link it to a SVN changeset. It wouldn’t be the same as linking tfs checkins to workitems, for example the built in UI for doing it with TFS checkins wouldn’t be of use. You’d need to either do it manually or find a plugin that works.
You could fairly simply add a field to tfs workitems to hold a changeset number, and extend cruise control to update any resolved work items without a value in this field with the current builds revision. Possible, but a bit of work.
TFS can automatically create work items when a build fails, i normally turn this off and use a build monitor instead, however again it’s another thing you probably won’t get out of the box.
Any integration with the web ui – obviously tfs will only show results from its own tools, so while you could use it for editing your work items, the source control and build tabs would be useless to you.
I believe a lot of the test management stuff is integrated with tfs builds, while you could probably still use lab management without a build controller you’d be losing some of its best benefits.