Getting Started With Custom Reports for Team System

To better track your team's progress in Visual Studio Team System Team Foundation Server, you can create reports that highlight the data that is most important for your project. By creating your own reports, you can drill down on specific information that is not analyzed by the default reports in Team Foundation Server. In addition, you can customize how your reports are run, displayed, and delivered to each member of your team.

Preparing to Create Reports

Before you start to create reports, you should decide which tools can best help you create and manage reports. You should then decide which data source will provide the kind of information that you want.

Reporting Tools

You can use any tool that can connect to a SQL Server database to create your reports. For example, many teams use Excel if they want to quickly create reports. If you are already familiar with SQL Server Report Designer, you might use this tool for more advanced report design and report management features. After you create reports in Report Designer, you can publish them so that they show up in the Reports folder in Team Explorer. For more information, see Choosing a Tool to Create Reports for Team System.

Sources of Data

When you create a report for Team System, you pull data from the warehouse for Team Foundation Server. This warehouse provides two sources of data: an analysis services database and a relational database. You can also use a work item query to create a report in certain cases. To get started quickly, use the analysis services database or a work item query. For more information, see Choosing the Source of Data in a Report for Team System.

Creating Reports

You can use the procedures in the following table to experiment with different approaches for creating a report.

Managing Reports

After you have created your report, you can then share it and manage permissions and other properties of the report. For more information, see Managing Reports in Reporting Services for Team System and Managing Excel Reports for Team System in the Project Portal.

More Information

You can get more information about creating custom reports from the following topics:

Team Foundation Server Reporting

Team Foundation Server Data Warehouse

You can also get more information from the following resources on the Microsoft Web site:

• Understanding the TFS Cube (blog)
  A discussion of the analysis services database for Team System, with videos that demonstrate how to perform various tasks.

• Demo - tutorial: Building TFS reports using Excel and Excel Services (blog)
  A video that demonstrates how to use Excel and Excel Services with the analysis services database for Team System to create reports.

• Demo - tutorial: Building a TFS report using Report Designer (blog)
  A video that demonstrates how to use Report Designer with the analysis services database for Team System to create reports.

• Team Foundation Server Reporting & Warehouse (forum)
  A forum where you can get answers to questions about using the data warehouse for Team System to create custom reports.

• SQL Server Reporting Services (forum)
  A forum where you can get answers to questions about using Report Designer and other components of SQL Server Reporting Services.

• Discussions in Excel Charts (forum)
  A discussion site about using charts in Excel.