TFS Tips and Tricks ... some of the common issues we notice in the field
Reports take time ... project managers take note
Often project managers arrive at stand-up scrum or project status meetings, armed with reports that upon closer inspection ... typically done during the meeting ... are missing a lot of most recent updates. Take note, that Team Foundation Server synchronizes the relational databases and the OLAP database, typically used for reporting, on an hourly basis by default. See "TFS QA - How do I change the processing interval for the Data Warehouse?" for more information and a way to manually force an update.
Also have a look at the widgets page here, where you will find tools that monitor|update the warehouse as well, i.e. TFS Datawarehouse Update.
Start|Finish Date Fields are read-only
The start and end dates are not editable on the work item forms in most process templates as they are typically managed in MS Project and setting them impacts the scheduling within Project as constraints on the tasks result in the dates becoming fixed.
If you are not using MS Project, like most of us, you can either use Excel to update the dates, or modify the process template changing the start and finish dates to readonly=false. Give me a shout if you need the steps for either scenario, i.e. Excel or customising the process template.
Management and End-Users using Team Explorer
Why are TFS environments forcing Team Explorer and its Visual Studio, developer-like interface, down to project managers and even worse, customers? Consider Visual Studio Team System Web Access 2008 Power Tool for these users, as the non-developer-like-user-interface is far less threatening and productive. You can find the download here and the SP1 CTP here.
TFVC is related to Visual Studio, not its twin
This one had us stumped as well. Users who are adding source code to Team System Version Control through the Source Explorer will note that the code is added to version control, however, when opening in Visual Studio these solutions appear unbound. Hhhhmmmm ... the code is in version control, like any other artifact such as a binary file, but that does not mean that the solution is bound to the version control repository. Use the Source Control Explorer to add the binding or simply "Add Solution to Source Control" to create the bindings ... which creates the strange .vssscc files.