Collaborate using team resources

Go here to open the Visual Studio 2015 version of this topic.

Within a team project, each team can work independently from other teams while still providing visibility on progress across the organization. When you’re familiar with the tools Team Foundation Server (TFS) provides to plan and track projects, you can use them to increase your team’s collaboration and productivity.

Add teams, schedule sprints, and share and configure team resources

By default, when you create a team project, you also create a default team. For small teams, one team is all you need. However, for large organizations, creating additional teams provides each team with a view into their work, an ability to configure their task board, sprints, and team home page.

	Set up or add: A team or a hierarchy of teams Team members Team administrators Area paths
	Schedule: Sprint dates Forecast sprints Burndown chart, default working days
	Share: Work item queries Work item templates Storyboard shapes Information using a project portal
	Configure: Kanban board Cumulative Flow Diagram Burndown chart, default working days Team room events Team home page Team alerts

Q & A

Q: Can a TFS user belong to more than one team?

A: Yes. When you add user accounts to a team project, you can add them as members of the team project, or you can add them to one or more teams added to the team project. If you work on two or more teams, you’ll want to make sure you, specify your sprint capacity for each team you work on.

Team members are also members of the Contributors group for a team project, which gives them access to work items and source code for the entire team project, unless they have been restricted. To learn how to restrict access, go here.

Q: How do I connect to a team project? How do I switch work to focus on a different team or team project?

A: Both Team Web Access (TWA) and Team Explorer support quick context switching.

Q: Can stakeholders who don’t use Visual Studio participate on our team?

A: Most users who interact with TFS must have a Client Access License (CAL), which they get with Visual Studio or an MSDN subscription. However, you can provide access to stakeholders who have no CAL for the following activities:

• Work Item Only View (WIOV): This view allows stakeholders to create and modify work items that they create using the Work Items page in TWA. In this view, stakeholders can report code defects, suggest a product feature, or further annotate their feedback responses. WIOV was designed specifically to provide access to any member in an organization with a TFS deployment who doesn't have a CAL.

• Provide feedback: To allow your stakeholders to provide feedback, you must grant them specific permissions. You can also allow them to view their feedback responses or to create other types of work items.

• View dashboards and reports: For stakeholders to view and refresh reports, you must assign them the required permissions. For stakeholders to view dashboards, you must assign them permissions to view the SharePoint site.

For Visual Studio Online, see Work as a stakeholder.

Q: Can I create a hierarchy of teams?

A: Yes. Although there is no concept of sub-teams, you can create teams whose area paths are under another team, which effectively creates a hierarchy of teams.

Q: Can we use a team field instead of the area path to organize work by teams?

A: Yes. If your organization has several teams that work from a common backlog and across many product areas, you might want to customize the team project to support team fields. This configuration will still allow teams to work independently, but work can be assigned to teams instead of by product area path.

Q: How do I customize the workflow or work item form?

A: Customizing the workflow or work item form applies to all teams within a team project. Review Modify or add a custom work item type (WIT) for more information. For additional customization options, see Customize the work tracking experience.

Q: I want to add a team picture. What do I need to know?

A: If you're a team administrator, you can add a team picture. Open the administration page and choose the picture icon under Team Profile. The maximum file size is 4 MB.