TFS Live - Privacy Policy

TFS Live - Privacy Policy:

We are not affiliated with Microsoft Visual Studio team and this is not the official Visual Studio TFS App. We value your privacy. Here is our privacy policy:  Your privacy is respected. The application collects your TFS Credentials solely for the purpose of transmitting it to your TFS Server. The App does not store any of the information that you read or share. You can send email to raj.kamal@outlook.com if you have any concerns related to your privacy. All information received via emails is treated with strict confidentiality and used solely for the purpose of improving this App. We do not send commercial and/or unsolicited emails.

TFS Live - Win 8 App

Users,



Important Note**: This app only works with TFS that are accessible over internet (extranet) or hosted TFS

Important Note**: if you are trying with hosted TFS, please refer to slide 17 of this PPT for configuration change



This app is for the users that are currently using Microsoft Team Foundation Server (TFS) for work item management (bugs, test cases and tasks). 

Test Data & Configuration Steps:
1. After installation of the application, go to “Configure”
2. Select “TFS Settings” charm
3. Enter “TFS Server” as https://ranjitgupta.visualstudio.com/defaultcollection
4. Enter “domain\username or live id” as tfslive@outlook.com
5. Enter “password” as  nothing123$
6. Press Authenticate. Wait for completion
7. Select Project Name as cmmi6.1
8. Select Test Plan as “Select All” (default) OR any other test plan in the drop down
9. Select Iteration Path as “Select All” (default) OR any other iteration in the drop down
10. Select Role as “Manager”
11. Press Done. Wait for completion
12. You will get an alert to allow "live tiles updates". Please press allow.

Expected Result:
Once you have the above information, you can see the dashboard and other details to verify the application functionality

Feature - TFS Web Access Integration from Tiles
Clicking on the tiles will redirect the user to IE 10 to show more details about the number shown in the tile.

Warning: Please ensure that you are not logged in to Hotmail/Live/Outlook account when you are doing this step. Ensure that you log out from Hotmail / Live / Outlook account before trying this step

Steps:
1. Click on the tile
2. It will redirect to IE 10
3. You will be shown Live Authentication screen to provide outlook credentials

4. Enter “username” as tfslive@outlook.com
5. Enter “password” as  nothing123$
6. Press Sign In

Expected Result:

Browser will successfully connect to TFS Web access and will show the details.


Please contact rajkamal@microsoft.com or rankumar@microsoft.com for any help required to set this up.
Happy testing !!! Appreciate your time and effort.
Thanks,
Raj



 

Avengers - On a mission to save the world (Testing Skit / Video)

 

“The Avengers” from Microsoft Global Delivery Testing, on a mission to save the world (Testing Skit/Funny)

 

I am back again with another stage act that won our test team a title among 15 other participating teams. If you have read my earlier  attempt (blogged here) and liked it, you will hopefully find this funny.

--

--------------------------------------------Start of Script----------------------------------------------------------

<<Scene 1>>

------------------------------------James Bond music playing in the background……………………………….

-------A person comes with a board “Innovation 2013 Awards Ceremony” --------------------------

Sweta (Host): The next IP Innovation Award goes to the Avengers team from GD Community - Testing.

--------------James Bond, Superman, Gunjan (Idea Owner), Arup (Tester 1), Aditya (Community Lead) run to the stage and almost snatch the award from the host. They pose for the group photos and celebrate………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Sweta (Host) to Team: Do you want to tell us your story?

James Bond (Manish): Let me take you back in time 3 months

<<FLASHBACK>>

A person comes with a board “3 months back….”

<</Scene 1>>

<<Scene 2>>

………………………..Test team is working and James Bond comes to the scene………………………………………

James Bond (Manish): hey Superman, I have got a mission for you. To save the humanity, you need to execute these many test cases

Superman (Raj): wallah, these test cases are in Arabic. How would I execute?

James Bond (Manish): come on, you are superman. You can do anything

Superman (Raj): Even superman can’t execute test cases in Arabic

James Bond (Manish): Don’t worry. This is Bond. I have amazing “bonding” with the customer. Let me call them up now.

………… James Bond (Manish) to call the customer. Customer picks the call>>………………………..............

James Bond (Manish): Hello, this is Bond. Mutual Bond

Customer (Sweta) <sounding annoyed>>: Who Bond?

-------------Superman (Raj) and Arup (Tester1) laugh behind him that Bond is after all not so popular……

James Bond (Manish): (tone changes): Actually this is Manish. Testing team. Your test lead.

Customer (Sweta) <sounding annoyed>>:: Do you know what time it is?

James Bond (Manish): sincere apologies. We are in a situation and we need a translator for those Arabic test cases. How early can we get?

Customer (Sweta): It will take 2 weeks to hire one

James Bond (Manish): Ok. I guess I will ask my team to join some Arabic speaking classes

Customer (Sweta): Do whatever it takes but don’t call up again

…………………………………………………………the call ends…………………………………………………………………………………..

James Bond (Manish) (Looks tensed and in deep thoughts)

Tester 1 (Arup): Bond, did you remember our community test newsletter has an update on the language translator tool our guys are working on?

James Bond (Manish) <<thinking why this idea didn’t come to him, pauses and says with authority>>: I know that. I was going to say exactly that. go back to work

James Bond (Manish) <<now looks cheerful and happy>>: Let me go the community lead and talk to him

<</Scene 2>>

<<Scene 3>>

James Bond (Manish): hey Community Lead, my name is Bond. Covalent Bond !! I heard you have got some magic tool for translation

Community Lead (Aditya): sure. Let me connect you with Gunjan (Idea Owner), whose team is working on it

<<Manish and Community Lead (Aditya) go to Gunjan (Idea Owner)’steam>>

Community Lead (Aditya): meet Gunjan (Idea Owner)

James Bond (Manish): hey, this is Bond. Brooke Bond!! I need you to share the location, locale, coordinates to download it

Gunjan (Idea Owner): dude… we have just done a POC of that. We are still in the implementation phase.. if you want to use it…you will need to help us and I can’t promise you extra hours of billing.

James Bond (Manish): When it comes to saving the world, who care about the hours

James Bond (Manish): I have got a superman and a man to help you. Let’s work together.

<<Team forms a huddle and start working on the tool >>

<</Scene 3>>

---------------------------a poster comes saying “v1.0 of the tool is released”……………………………………….

<<Scene 4>>

James Bond (Manish): so what’s up Superman?

Superman (Raj) <<sound panicked>> – Done with the Arabic thing. But now they want to release it in Europe and they have sent the test cases in Spanish and German too

James Bond (Manish): Don’t worry. Bond. Amazing “bonding” with the customer. Let me call the customer.

Arup: Bond, if you don’t mind, our language translator tool using Bing Translator APIs and it will work fine for all these languages

James Bond (Manish): I know that. I was going to say exactly the same. You get back to your work now. Let me call the customer and tell them.

<< James Bond (Manish) calls Customer (Sweta)>>

James Bond (Manish): hello, this is Bond.

Customer: Now what?

James Bond (Manish): We no longer require those translators

Customer (Sweta): good. It will save us 1000 hours

Bond: I know

Customer (Sweta): by the way, what did you do?

James Bond (Manish) (pauses and with a wicked laugh): we learnt all the languages J

Customer (Sweta): now you can call yourself “Universal” Bond

James Bond (Manish): I know <<hangs up the call>>

<</Scene 4>>

<<Scene 5>>

James Bond (Manish): Guys, now that we have saved the work. It calls for a party. Everyone join us.

<<The teams come to the stage and assemble>>

Community lead: Guys, this is great collaboration. I know there are many projects that are struggling with the same problem. I think you should all do a brown bag and session for this at our internal conference. I will make sure everyone gets recognition for their hard work

----poster comes “1000 downloads & 20 projects internally re-using this ”…………………………………………

<</Scene 5>>

----------------------------------------------------The END----------------------------------------------------------------

Morale of the act: The skit was about a test team at GD that showed how a team can collaborate and innovate by doing the heavy lifting themselves and getting the right help from community, who acts as enabler. You don’t need superheroes to do wonders. You just need regular guys work together and solve big challenges.

Credits:

Cast:

Community Lead (Testing): Aditya Jain

Test Lead 1 (Lead role) – Manish [as James Bond]

Tester 1 – Raj U [as Superman]

Tester 2 – Arup Dutta [regular guy]

Test Lead 2(Idea Owner) - Gunjan Jain [regular girl]

Host – Sweta Prakash

Customer – Sweta Prakash

Poster Bearer – Jayakant Pottum

Written & Directed by:

Raj Kamal

Testing a NUI (Natural User Interface) application fit for a King!

It all started 2 years back in Riyadh, a place in middle of nowhere. If you like desert then that is a place to be. Now imagine interacting with Sheikhs (customers) for requirements who don’t really understand English. Potential users include Ministers, Crown Prince and King of Saudi Arabia himself. To make things tougher, how about having a team that consist of people from 12 different nationalities and trying to execute an agile project from 6 different geographies & time zones.

Major Test Challenges

As you would have guessed, it didn’t start all very well as we had our share of tough times and nervous nights before Sprint demos in front of the customer and esteemed guests..

Other major challenges

1. Lack of strategy and wisdom around testing NUI applications

2. Unavailability of Hardware (Surface 2.0) during development phase

3. The application was in Arabic and finding a way to test it using English data

Key Test Learning

The new learning for us was testing NUI based multi-touch machines. The following approaches helped:

1. Focus was given to Usability guidelines, wireframes and working closely with UX designer to ensure that the ‘look and feel’ of the application is apt for the local taste and the expectations of the high ranking officials to make give it rich experience..

2. We used Surface simulator for testing the application on non-touch machines and all-in-one multi touch machines as an economical alternative when Surface 2.0 wasn’t available. When Surface 2.0 was available the final round of testing was done on it.

3. We proposed Visual Studio Database features to maintain Arabic and English version the data and Resource files to have the labels in Arabic & English. That helped in switching the content to English or Arabic by just changing minor configurations.