Whats the best way to deliver TFS build status not

Question

I like the status email sent by TFS's alerts mechanism when a build breaks. However I would like to send such an email to the entire team and not rely on the team to subscribe to the alert...

Having a hard time producing a nice and detailed enough message by myself when overriding the "OnBuildBreak" and using the MSBuildCommunityTasks EMail task.

Is there a way to force a TFS alert to be sent to a list of emails? Can you recommend of a way to send such status notifications?

Answer 1

Brian the Build bunny is nice but the Nabaztagtag WiFi Rabbit bunny is pretty expensive and is currently out of stock.

The Team Build Tray Notification that comes with TFS is ok, but:

• It's damn slow and polling is not configurable
• It's too easy to miss the build being broken for projects you care about
• Doesn't support different actions for different projects (e.g. show a modal dialog for project #1, but just show a short tray alert for project #2)
• Doesn't support different triggers for different people (e.g. show notifications for just me on project #1 or anyone on project #2)
• No information on what broke the build (e.g. compiler error, unit test, integration test)
• No audible notification if system's on mute
• No last build times

So there's an open source project on Google Code that runs in the tray that's available on Google Code: http://code.google.com/p/siren-of-shame/. That project can work independently but it's designed to work with a USB Siren that is available for sale.

Answer 2

In my mind, a open source project named 'Web Deployment Projects' can do this. your can search for it.

Answer 3

Set up an email alias for the team on the mail server, and enter this when subscribing to the mail.

Try the Team Foundation Server Event Subscription Tool. This allows you to send emails to any address when any TFS event occurs.

Answer 4

You could try.

Brian the build bunny

:-)

Answer 5

The July release of TFS 2008 PowerTools adds an "Alert Editor" to Team Explorer. Adding Alerts is a breeze. It has a query tool similar to the Query tool.

Answer 6

I generally like the TFS Build Status Tray by Rob Aquila. Be sure to get the 1.0.1 Beta, as this lets you easily specify the projects to watch using a bit of GUI and also has a notify icon that changes color, so you only need to open the actual build status list when the icon turns red. The 1.0 version had a fixed icon, and only notify toasts in the corner of your screen.

There is also a version of the same tool that is meant to be shown full screen on a wall mounted display for instance.