How do I change Process Template on an existing Team Project in TFS 2010?

Question

How do I change process template to MSF for Agile on an already existing team project in TFS 2010?

We have upgraded our TFS 2008 to 2010, and now I would also like to change the process template to MSF for Agile (currently CMMI). We haven't used the workitem functionality much so if some information gets lost in the conversion doesn't matter.

Deepseated

Answer 1

Once you've created a Team Project, you unfortunately can't just upload a new process template. As Robaticus says, you'll have to download the XML for the template and modify it, then re-upload it. The power tool lets you create NEW templates for NEW team projects, but it won't modify an existing one.

Instead, you can use the witadmin.exe tool (on any computer with Team Explorer installed, under \Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE, or just from a Visual Studio Command Prompt) to export the current workitem definitions and re-import them once you've made your changes.

Luckily, if you're not using workitem tracking much, then this might not be too difficult. You might be able to just delete all the existing workitem types and then re-upload the new types.

If this is too much trouble, consider how much you want to retain your source control history. It might be worth creating a new Team Project with the Agile template and then just moving all your source code into it.

Bison

+1 for a more detailed answer than I was able to give. Take care when creating the new project, though. Instead of just creating a new source repository and moving the stuff over, I would branch from the existing when I created the new project. That way it helps maintain a history of the changes. – Belting

I ended up with creating a couple of new project and migrating some code to the new Team projects. (We had one large project before and it needed to be split up =) ) Thanks for the help – Chem

There are however a number of ways to achieve the same result: nakedalm.com/… – Amando

For VS 2017+ the path to witadmin is C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\[Year]\[Version]\Common7\IDE\CommonExtensions\Microsoft\TeamFoundation\Team Explorer – Leah

Answer 2

You can't change the process template, however you can change the work item types. So for bugs, tasks you can swap to the Agile definitions.

You can do this in 2010 with witadmin, in 2008 it's importwit, by first downloading the template to disk (you'll need the TFS power tools for this). Then point the console app at bug.xml, task.xml etc..

Usage: witadmin importwitd /collection:collectionurl [/p:project] /f:filename [/e:encoding] [/v]

 /collection    Specifies the Team Foundation project collection. Use a fully specified URL such as
                http://servername:8080/tfs/Collection0.
 /p             Specifies the team project in which the new work item type is imported.  This is required, except when
                the validation-only option is used.
 /f             Specifies the work item type XML definition file to import.
 /e             Specifies the name of the .NET Framework 2.0 encoding used to import the XML file. For example,
                /e:utf-7 will use Unicode (UTF-7) encoding. Encoding is automatically detected whenever possible. If
                the encoding cannot be detected, UTF-8 is used.
 /v             Validates the XML definitions for the work item type, link type, or global workflow without importing
                them.

Augustinaaugustine

Answer 3

You can export the agile process template to disk, then import the work items into your existing project. You may need the TFS Power Tools to do this.

Belting

Answer 4

I may be too late for this question, but the TFS Integration Platform tools could really help here.

See this question on server fault that details on how to move from Scrum For Team System V2 to Microsoft Visual Studio Scrum 1.0.

You would need to setup your own mappings to move from your templates to the target template, but the process is the same.

Brosine

Thanks.. =) I ended up creating new Projects and moving the code. – Chem

Answer 5

I think the best way to accomplish this is to create a new Team Project with "the new" process template and use the TFS Integration tool to migrate your existing WorkItems and choose create a new branch from Source Control, so you'll have new work Items (with the new workflow) and the source control history (as well). You'd even do this across versions of TFS!! (On the case interested on migrate TFS 2005/2008/2010)

Another way might be to use the WorkItem Templates, but I think this is more a kind-of visual style (I've not much experience) applied to the Work Item. To do so, just right click on your project, import the WITDefinition and apply the template by selecting Apply template on desired WorkITems.

Disenthrone

Answer 6

Please note witadmin.exe could help in some scenarios but TFS Integration Platform is your ultimate choice to achieve this task. There is a user voice item still pending. Please check this SO thread.

Dennett