Allow external users to submit bugs, but only enable specific fields on the work-item type

Question

After a long investigation on how to use TFS 2010 I started with the installation. (I also installed the Sharepoint services and enabled all reporting services as these are the things I want to show my client.) During the project configuration I've hit a roadblock. I spend a couple of days searching for a solution but they are either very complex, or non-existent.

There are two types of users in my project that matter: internal and external users. Internal users are we, the developers and management; external users is our client. (We develop software for a single client, communication goes through two-three persons on their side.) Now, normally I would add the external user group as read-only. However, in our situation they should be able to access one single work-item type, and only a small subset of the work-item type fields should be editable.

And this simply seems impossible. Or I went searching with the wrong keywords, but so far the only solution I have found is to edit all work-item types, mark the save button as read-only, except for my internal users group. On the bug work-item type, the one I want editable by our client, I need to mark every field I don't want them to change as read-only. Unfortunately, the read-only filter is not applicable to fields of the type tree node, like the iteration and area path fields. And especially the iteration path field is something they should not be able to change. (We can of course make a deal, but as anyone who communicates with a client once in a while knows, it's just a matter of time before they start editing it and our burndown chart goes woesh.)

So my question is actually quite simple: how can I make the bug work-item type the only one editable by our client, and limit the number of fields they can use on that work-item type.

I also tried installing TFS 2011 beta, on a Windows 8 beta server, but failed to install SQL Server 2012 beta. If this all would be possible with that setup, I would give the install another try. Unfortunately I don't like to depend on beta versions to start my project with.

Answer 1

First, you can customize the process to do what you need, you simply just make a group and make it prohibited for field or state in the work items, and just add any user to this group.

For the full video about comprehensive customization of the process, you can see this video http://mohamedradwan.wordpress.com/2011/10/06/customize-tfs-process-2010-video/

Updated 1/4/2012

For field you can use Frozen as the following:

Updated 1/4/2012

How about deny Edit work items in this node permission, see the following image