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TFS Build definitions – How do I sort and organize a large number Build definitions?

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Issue/Problem:

I have a large number of build definitions, which are increasing by the day, as we are adding branches and along with that several builds per branch. Is there some way to “group” build definitions, and maintain some sanity, instead of pulling my hair?.

Workaround/Solution

Often times you have more than a few builds and it quickly becomes unwieldy to sort and organize them. This becomes a problem especially if you have a large number of builds, and a large number of projects to manage. Though there is no “direct” solution or features that addresses this, however one can use the “My Favorites” folder in Team Explorer of TFS 2010 or TFS 2012 to do this.

The following is a screen shot from Team Explorer 2010. You can do a similar thing from Team Explorer 2012 also.

 

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This is a client side solution/workaround as we are doing this from Visual Studio, and so this will not be persisted to the server. It still does help in maintaining some sanity in handling a large number of builds. Of course if you couple this with a proper naming convention, then the builds will appear sorted also, which is an added benefit.

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