Last week I had the privilege of giving a presentation at the Software Development Network conference. There was a nice turn-out of around 50 people. After a couple of slides I had one big demo that showed the different elements of Visual Studio Team Services such as Plan, Code, Build, Test, Release and Monitor.
You can find the presentation here: From 0 to 60. After the slides I included a series of screenshots that take you through the demo (in case of a failing internet connection!).
During the presentation we had some interesting questions and discussion points like:
- My team uses an on-premises TFS. When will all the new features of VSTS be available for TFS?
You can check the Visual Studio Team Services Features Timeline to see when features will be available for TFS.
- My testers work in an Agile way. Can they use the testing features without having to create huge test cases upfront?
Yes. You can use Exploratory Testing. You can run an Exploratory Testing session with Microsoft Test Manager or with the new extension for Chrome.
- What’s Kanban?
Through a demo I showed how to use and configure the Kanban board. To get a grasp of the basics of Kanban, you can find info on MSDN.
- What’s the Marketplace for VSTS and is it useful?
It’s absolutely useful! The Marketplace allows you to find an install extensions for Visual Studio, Visual Studio Team Services, Team Foundation Server and Visual Studio Code. You can find small, easy to use extensions like Folder Management and Branch Delete and more complex extensions like Work Item Visualization and File owner.
- Who are the ALM Rangers?
I always insert a slide that explains what we do as ALM Rangers. Often people haven’t heard of us yet but have already used guidance or tooling that we build. You can find more info at aka.ms/vsarunderstand.
Questions or other feedback? Please leave a comment.