CODEWITHSUNDEEP
tfs
user43822
user43822

Reputation:

Team Foundation Server Automated Release Notes generation

What would be the best method of automatically generating a Release Notes text file from a Team Foundation Server 2008 nightly build?

Upvotes: 12

Views: 5399

Answers (3)

Kenny Saelen
Kenny Saelen

Reputation: 894

I think the solutions here are describing "build notes". If you want that, you really need to checkout the TFS Community Build Manager. It has a feature to generate build notes in Word files by using the OpenXML. It's clicking the VSIX and you're done.

But imho, build notes are not release notes. Release notes provide a more customer friendly way of listing you changes. And you need to be able to specify what work items you want in the notes, and the ones you don't want your customer to see. So for that, I have created a custom Team Explorer add-in. And it does more or less what the build manager does as to generating the OpenXML Word.

I use queries to define what the bugfixes are, what new features are available, ... and then the team explorer extension provides the GUI to specify the document fields (Title, descriptions, remarks, ...) and to select the queries corresponding to the blocks on the release notes. After filling in the details, the word document gets generated. I can provide with all the details if you want.

Upvotes: 1

Mephisztoe
Mephisztoe

Reputation: 3314

UPDATE:

I uploaded a sample xsl file for transforming the buildlog.xml to get an informative plain releasenotes.txt. Get it here: Automatically generate release notes textfile from Team Foundation Build

That one is actually pretty easy. Grant Holliday describes it on his blog. It basically goes something like this:

  1. Install MSBuild Community Tasks (which contains the WebDownload Task)
  2. Install MSXSL.exe from Microsoft (for transforming xml files)
  3. Extend the tfsbuild project with information regarding the retrieval of the buildlog.xml (using WebDownload task) and transformation with MSXSL.exe

However, you need to download the MSBuild Community Tasks directly from tigris and not use the link provided in this blog post. This is due to the fact, that the link refers to the wrong version which does not support the UseDefaultCredentials options (that you need for the MSBuild Task to be able to connect to the proper TFS Webservice).

Here is the link to the article: Building a release notes text file with team build

I got everything working except for the xsl file, because unfortunately, Grant does not offer a sample xsl. If you manage to create a proper xml transform file that fits your needs, it would be awesome if you can send me a copy. ;-)

Upvotes: 0

Collin
Collin

Reputation: 11

We created a TFS report that lists all Work Items associated with a specified Iteration (version). In addition we added a custom field to Work Items to indicate if we wanted the work item included in the release notes report. (Not all Work Items are appropriate for all clients/users.)

You could automate this process but you would need to specify the iteration in your build task. Or you could list every work item that has been completed as of a specific date.

Upvotes: 1

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