TFS 2017 Work Item Forms (new) - conversion from T

Question

Running on TFS 2017, recently upgraded from 2015.

Soon after the upgrade I started to convert my existing TFVC repositories to Git. So far all is going well on that side, however what's puzzled me now is that the Work Item Task form seems to be incorrect\based upon TFVC.

I am using the new forms that come with 2017 and a Playground collection I also have displays the correct form.

The attach screen shots will probably explain it a lot better than words:

I don't want this:

This is what I'm expecting:

As you can see, the first one is missing the Development Group shown in the second, that makes creating Pull requests etc so much easier.

So, what am I missing here?

I should add that the Playground was created on TFS 2017, the other collection with the missing Development header was from a 2015 instance. I'm assuming there's some sort of setting somewhere that might need to be changed - either on the GUI or witadmin. Either that or this just isn't possible and I'm basically stuck. If it is witadmin then I'd appreciate more than a reply telling me it is since that command confuses the heebies out of me.

Answer 1

Actually the missing group on the work item form has nothing to do with moving from TFVC to Git. It's caused by the automatic conversion of the old work item form to the new web layout style.

Unfortunately the TFS Power Tools template editor doesn't support the new layout, yet. So you need to edit the process template XML files by hand.

First thing you have to do, is to export your work item type configuration using the witadmin.exe tool as described here: Import, export, and manage work item types

In the file go to the <WebLayout> section. Just for the missing development group add the following to the last <Section> element:

<Group Label="Development">
  <Control Type="LinksControl" Name="Development">
    <LinksControlOptions ViewMode="Dynamic" ZeroDataExperience="Development" ShowCallToAction="true">
      <ListViewOptions GroupLinks="false"></ListViewOptions>
      <LinkFilters>
        <ExternalLinkFilter Type="Build" />
        <ExternalLinkFilter Type="Pull Request" />
        <ExternalLinkFilter Type="Branch" />
        <ExternalLinkFilter Type="Fixed in Commit" />
        <ExternalLinkFilter Type="Fixed in Changeset" />
        <ExternalLinkFilter Type="Source Code File" />
      </LinkFilters>
    </LinksControlOptions>
  </Control>
</Group>

From my experience this is not the only thing that's missing on the form. To get the same look as in the newly created (on TFS 2017) project, I exported the standard process template my process template is based on (e.g. Scrum, HowTo) and copied the whole <WebLayout> element to my Task.xml. Afterwards I added my customizations and uploaded the WITD to the project.

Answer 2

You can try to create a new team project collection in TFS 2017 and create a new Git team project, then migrate the TFVC repositories to the new created Git team project. Then you'll be able to use the new form on TFS web access.