After installing Team Foundation Server and Team Foundation Build, I came across a problem where I would successfully execute a Build on the project, however the build would not appear in the Build Report.

I opened up the Builds database on the TFS Server to see whether not the builds had been recognized. I found that the builds were being stored but that they were not being pulled over into the reports.

This issue is a result of the fact that the reports in TFS are pulled from the data warehouse and the not the Builds Database. In order to decrease the latency between your builds showing up in your Build reports (along with any other TFS changes not showing up in your reports....ex. closing out a bunch of work items and having it reflect on your "Remaining Work" reports) you can change the rate at which the datawarehouse is updated.

The warehouse is updated on a timer so in order to improve the turn around for your reports (or more importantly if you need to pull some reports from some data which has not been updated in the warehouse) then you can modify the update interval by calling this webservice.

Changing the Interval Setting

In Internet Explorer, open the following URL:

http://<tfsserver>:8080/Warehouse/v1.0/warehousecontroller.asmx?op=ChangeSetting

where <tfsserver> represents the name of the Team Foundation Server. A page that contains two boxes labeled settingID and newValue opens.

In the box labeled settingID, type RunIntervalSeconds.

In the box labeled newValue, type the new interval time in seconds.

Click Invoke to change the setting.

Security

To perform this procedure, you must be a member of the Administrators group on the Team Foundation application-tier server. For more information, see Team Foundation Server Permissions.

Manually Kick Off the DataWarehouse Update

1. Go to http://localhost:8080/Warehouse/warehousecontroller.asmx using a browser on the app tier.

2. Click the ‘Run’ link.

3. Press the ‘Invoke’ button.

This will trigger a refresh of the reports.

I meant to publish this document some time ago, but I haven't had much time at all to post anything lately.

This document was a result of early project research into what DAL and BLL code generation tool that we should use. In sum the project was a CRM web application which was to be developed using the MSF Agile process. The requirements were loosely defined and likely to change. Before I had started at the company, a developer had already created a prototype site for the project using the NetTiers template for CodeSmith. Initially, I was extremely impressed with the generated code but as I started needing more customization, flexibility, and stability I decided to do a small comparison between NetTiers and LLBLGen to see which product best served our project.

This .doc file is the result of my findings:

Code Generation Product Comparison.doc

In the end we decided to go with LLBLGen. Looking back  a few months ago I definitely feel that this was the best decision that we could have made. Our company is so impressed that a couple of our other projects have purchased licenses and are under development as we speak.

Biggest reasons why we chose LLBLGen over NetTiers:

1. LLBLGen is much more flexible - We are capable of renaming entities, customizing property names, adding custom relationships, creating typed lists, etc.
2. LLBLGen will probably be supported much more strongly. Since NetTiers is an open source project we were concerned about building an important (costly) application on something which would bear little to no responsibility on any vendors.
3. NetTiers 2 was currently under development when we were considering the decision. As we modified the database and regenerated the project, we were running into both runtime and compiler errors.

1. The first .NET application that I ever wrote was in J#.Net. That being said, I still share some reverence for the old language. Well() not() that() much() anymore().
2. Up through my last year in college, I never had thought that I was going to work as a programmer/software engineer. At that time, my true passion was philosophy...so much in fact that my goal was to go back to grad school to become a philosophy professor.
3. I surfed competitively for many years (as an amatuer). I was featured in a few surfing magazines, I finished equal 7ths in CA and in the top 20 at Nationals.
4. I dated my wife for almost 11 years before we got married. We started dating in Jr. High and finally married a year after I graduated from SDSU.
5. Although I hate to reveal something this terrible...At one point in my life I was seriously considered buying a mac. It was a sad day...but to my defense I was a confused Linux user at that time...please don't judge me.

Although nobody really tagged me for this. I still thought it would be interesting...especially since I need to get back into the swing of blogging. Currently, I'm working on a project which has had way too much of an aggressive schedule and its starting to take its toll on my time.

Here are some more from much greater developers/bloggers than I : Buck Hodges, Martin Woodward, Rob Caron, Eric Lee, Mickey Gousett.