Professional Application Lifecycle Management with Visual Studio® 2010

Chapter 24. Using Reports, Portals, and Dashboards

WHAT'S IN THIS CHAPTER?

• Understanding Team Foundation Server data stores

• Understanding the tools available to manage reports

• Creating and customizing reports using Excel

• Creating RDL reports with Report Designer and Report Builder

• Understanding project portals and dashboards

Capturing information throughout the project is critical not only to project managers but to all team members alike. Equally important is the capability to analyze the information that was captured and understand it. With Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010, the mundane tasks associated with capturing is mostly automated, and gives crucial time back to the team to focus on building software rather than capturing information associated with building it.

Team Foundation Server also provides powerful features used to analyze the data and understand it. Tracking a project and monitoring it throughout its lifecycle is now made easier with Team Foundation Server Reporting and the dashboards. (Dashboards serve the purpose of providing useful information in an easy-to-consume form.)

This chapter examines the reporting capabilities of Team Foundation Server, working with reports, customizing reports, and the reviewing of reports shipped out-of-the box. In addition, this chapter looks into the new dashboards introduced in Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010 and team project portal as a way to stay up to date with the status of the project and the team.

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