TFS 2015 Configuration & Administration Training

This newly expanded 4-day course is designed for team members who are responsible for the installation, configuration, and administration of Microsoft Team Foundation Server 2015. It features a mix of lectures and hands-on lab exercises designed to ensure attendees gain the maximum benefit from the course.

This course has been designed to equip attendees with a solid knowledge of the many areas that a TFS champion is often called upon to configure and manage. Key topics covered in this course include product installation, security & permissions, reporting, customization, and team build.

If you’re responsible for looking after your organization’s TFS Server, then this is the course for you.

Product and Version Compatibility

Team Foundation Server or Visual Studio Online: This course focuses on TFS servers hosted within your organization (on-premises). It is not suitable for teams using Visual Studio Online.
Previous versions of Team Foundation Server: This course is suitable for attendees that are currently using TFS 2013. Much of the course content will be directly applicable to TFS 2013, especially later updates such as updates 3, 4 or 5.

At the completion of this course, attendees will be able to;

• Plan TFS deployment and install TFS 2015 in a variety of topologies
• Create appropriate service accounts
• Use the Best Practices Analyzer to validate a TFS deployment
• Plan a migration and/or upgrade to TFS 2015
• Understand the value of quarterly updates and how to install them
• Configure SMTP support and customize email alerts
• Keep TFS data safe using backup and restore
• Monitor the health and performance of a TFS instance
• Plan project hierarchies using team projects and team project collections
• Create, modify, rename, and delete team projects and team project collections
• Configure standard role-based security for team projects
• Use advanced security to manage fine-grained security
• Configure version control settings including backward compatibility
• Customize the process template to better suit the team’s requirements
• Understand the reporting infrastructure and create custom Excel reports
• Configure data warehouse and OLAP cube refresh and rebuilds
• Plan, install, and manage the new build environments introduced in 2015
• Optimize build infrastructure to provide fast feedback to teams
• Install and configure build infrastructure for legacy XAML builds (pre-2015 builds)

This course is designed for administrators and software development professionals responsible for the day-to-day administration and operation of a Team Foundation Server. Every organization using TFS should have at least one or two “TFS champions” who are skilled in the topics and areas covered in this course.

Attendees should have some familiarity with installations of server products such as operating systems, SQL server, etc. Some experience using Visual Studio would also be beneficial.

Module 1: Introducing the Microsoft Visual Studio 2015 Family

• What’s new in Visual Studio 2015
• Overview of the Visual Studio 2015 family
• Overview of product features
• A lap around Visual Studio Online
• Project workflow across the Visual Studio 2015 suite of products

Module 2: Planning a TFS 2015 Deployment

• Overview of TFS architecture
• Planning a TFS deployment
• An overview of product licensing

Module 3: Installing TFS

• Installing and configuring TFS prerequisites
• TFS 2015 installation
• Using the Best Practice Analyzer
• Integration with SharePoint

Module 4: Upgrading to TFS 2015

• Overview of upgrade options
• In-place vs migration-based upgrades
• Performing the upgrade
• Migration options from other version control providers

Module 5: Managing TFS Instances

• Using the TFS Administration Console
• Configuring SMTP support for TFS
• Customizing email alerts
• TFS server health monitoring
• Changing service accounts
• Viewing installed updates

Module 6: TFS Backup and Restore

• TFS backup and restore strategies
• Understanding the TFS databases
• Creating a backup schedule
• The restore process
• Refreshing the client data cache

Module 7: Creating and Managing Team Projects

• Creating team projects
• Understanding team project collections
• Creating project welcome pages
• Renaming team projects
• Deleting team projects

Module 8: Configuring Team Project-Level Security

• Overview of TFS security
• Configuring security using standard groups
• Understanding and configuring teams

Module 9: Advanced Security and Permissions

• Fine-grain security options
• Troubleshooting security
• TFS server-level permissions
• Setting permissions at the team project collection level
• Setting Web Access permissions
• Restricting access in TFS
• Using command line tools for managing security

Module 10: Source Control Configuration

• Create source control folder structures
• Setting project-wide source control settings
• Understanding workspaces
• Using the TF command line utility
• Using the TFS rollback command
• Using the TFS proxy to improve performance
• Backward compatibility using the MSSCCI provider

Module 11: Managing Process Templates

• Understanding process templates
• Basics of template customization
• Adding new fields to work item types
• Adding new work item types
• Adding new queries and reports
• Updating an upgraded team project

Module 12: Reporting

• Understanding the reporting architecture
• Adding new reports
• Creating ad hoc reports using Excel
• TFS warehouse and OLAP Cube overview
• Changing the data warehouse and analysis services cube processing frequency
• Rebuild the data warehouse and analysis services cube

Module 13: Build Automation

• Overview of build infrastructure
• Installing and configuring the build agents and controllers
• How to scale your build infrastructure
• Overview of hosted build services

Module 14: Supporting Legacy XAML Builds

• Overview of legacy build infrastructure
• Installing and configuring the build agents and controllers
• How to scale your legacy build infrastructure