Choose the Team Foundation client to support your tasks

To build, plan, and track your software development project using Visual Studio Team Foundation Server (TFS), you have the following choices of clients and tools. Each of these clients, except for PowerPoint Storyboarding, requires connecting the client to a TFS team project.

Primary clients Team Web Access (TWA) Team Explorer Team Explorer Everywhere	Use a primary client to manage source code and builds, to plan and track progress using work items, and to collaborate and coordinate your efforts with other team members. Team Web Access (TWA) is automatically installed and updated when TFS is installed or updated. You can access TWA through the following browsers: Internet Explorer, versions 9, 10, and 11 Mozilla Firefox, latest version (27) Google Chrome, latest version (32) Safari (supported on Macs only), versions 5, 6, and 7 Team Explorer is installed with each version of Visual Studio, or you can install Team Explorer from the Microsoft download center as a standalone client. Team Explorer Everywhere supports access to TFS from Eclipse-based environments and non-Windows platforms. Your team can collaborate from Eclipse or from the command line on the operating system of your choice.
Task-specific clients Microsoft Test Manager Microsoft Feedback Client	The following clients support specific tasks, such as managing testing efforts, providing feedback, or modifying work items. Microsoft Test Manager allows you to manage your test efforts, create and run manual tests, and create and track bugs that are found during test efforts. Test Manager installs with Visual Studio Premium, Visual Studio Ultimate, or Visual Studio Test Professional. Your stakeholders can use Microsoft Feedback Client to record feedback for your application as video, audio, or type-written comments. This client installs with all versions of Visual Studio, or can be installed from the free download. All feedback is stored in TFS and requires stakeholders to have required permissions.
Office-integration clients Excel Project Project Professional PowerPoint Storyboarding	The Team Foundation add-in that is installed when you install any edition of Visual Studio or Team Explorer integrates work item tracking with select Office clients. The add-in supports Office 2007, Office 2010, or Office 2013 versions. Use Excel and Project to add and modify work items. Using Project you can plan projects, schedule tasks, assign resources, and track changes. You have access to features that TFS doesn’t support, such as a project calendar, Gantt charts, and resource views. Using Project Professional you can manage projects that synchronize data that exists in both TFS and Project Server. Project managers and software development teams can use the tools that they prefer, work at the level of precision that supports their needs, and easily share information. PowerPoint Storyboarding lets you illustrate user stories and requirements using PowerPoint. When you install Visual Studio Premium, Visual Studio Ultimate, or Visual Studio Test Professional, the Team Foundation add-in installs to your existing PowerPoint client.

Tasks and client support

Use the following tables to choose the best client for the task you want to perform. Note that some tasks require that you have been granted Advanced access which provides access to all TWA features.

Legend:

- Designed for the task - Supports the task - Requires Advanced access Blank - Not applicable

Manage source code and builds

Task	TWA	Team Explorer	Team Explorer Everywhere
Add source code to Team Foundation version control Set up Git on your dev machine Add files to version control (Eclipse)
View, browse source code
Map workspaces
Develop code and manage pending changes
Download (get) files from Team Foundation version control
Download (get) files from Git
Check in and check out code
Download source code as a Zip file
Create build definitions
Manage builds
View and rate the quality of builds
Manage permissions:TFVC or Git

Plan a project, track progress

Task	Team Web Access	Team Explorer	Excel	Project
Create and organize the backlog
Work with portfolio backlogs
Track progress with the Kanban board
Work in sprints with the task board
Forecast sprints
Add teams and Administer team activities

Bulk add and modify work items

Task	TWA	Team Explorer	Team Explorer Everywhere	Excel	Project
Query for work items
Open a query in Excel or Project (1)
Add tags to work items to categorize and filter lists
Triage bugs, prioritize backlog items
Bulk add work items (Excel)
Bulk modify work items
Create and share work item templates (2)
Add formulas to worksheets
Work offline
Manage area-level permissions

Notes:

1. Although you can’t open a query directly from TWA, you can open Excel or Project and open a query that you created in TWA.

2. To manage work item templates in Team Explorer, download TFS Power tools.

Add and modify work item links

Task	TWA	Team Explorer	Excel	Project
Link two work items
Create a work breakdown structure (WBS)
Map backlog items to portfolio backlog items (1)
View and bulk modify hierarchical links (2)
Bulk add or modify predecessor-successor links (3)
Edit the link type of an existing link
Link source code to work items using My Work or Git

Notes:

1. In TWA, you can quickly map backlog items to portfolio backlog items. Mapping links work items using the parent-child link type. You can edit these link relationships in all other supported clients.

2. In Team Explorer, you can modify parent-child links by moving items in a tree list query. And in Excel and Project, you can modify parent-child links by cutting and pasting rows, inserting new rows, or indenting tasks (Project only).

3. When you link tasks in Project, you create predecessor-successor links between their corresponding TFS work items.

Collaborate with team members and stakeholders

Task	TWA	Team Explorer	Microsoft Feedback Client	PowerPoint Storyboarding	PowerPoint
Collaborate in a team room
Request feedback
Provide feedback
Review feedback
Request and respond to code review using My Work (1)
Storyboard a feature, user story, or experience (2)
View a storyboard created with PowerPoint Storyboarding (2)
Link storyboards to work items through the Storyboards tab

Notes:

1. To request or respond to code reviews, install Visual Studio Premium or Visual Studio Ultimate. My Work appears in Team Explorer with these editions.

2. To create or view storyboards, you must have Microsoft PowerPoint installed.

Create, manage, and run tests

Task	TWA	Team Explorer	Microsoft Test Manager
Plan and manage test plans and suites
Create manual test cases
Run tests
Track test results
Query for test cases, shared steps, or other work items
Manage test permissions

Monitor and report progress

Task	TWA	Excel	Project	Report Server	SharePoint Dashboards
Cumulative flow chart
Task burndown
Team velocity
Create query-based pie, column, and trend charts (1)
Generate query-based pie, column, and trend charts (Excel) (2)
Monitor code quality, project progress, test plans, and track bugs (3, 4)
Customize team home page
Customize dashboards (4)
Project timeline (5)
Resource usage (5)

Notes:

1. To author charts, you must belong to the Advanced access group. To author pie, column, or bar status charts, TFS 2013.2 update must be installed. To author trend charts or create a chart that sums field values, TFS 2013.4 update must be installed.

2. To create adhoc Excel reports, the team project collection that contains your team project must be provisioned with SQL Server Analysis Services, and you must be a member of the TfsWarehouseDataReader security role in Analysis Services.

3. To view SQL Server Report Server reports, the team project collection that contains your team project must be provisioned with SQL Server Reporting Services, and reports must be added to your team project. To view or create reports, you must be assigned SQL Server permissions.

4. To view SharePoint dashboards, your team project must have a project portal enabled, be associated with a SharePoint site, and have dashboards added to the site. Also, to view or customize dashboards, you must be assigned SharePoint permissions.

5. You can use the default reports available in Project to manage details that relate to task scheduling, task dependencies, and resource availability, while maintaining the data and making it available as work item tasks in TFS.

Q & A

Q: How do I get started?

A: If you need to download Visual Studio or TFS, go here. If you need to create a team project, start here. If it’s your first time connecting to TFS, go here.

Q: How do I get my Office-integration client to work?

A: If the Team menu or Team ribbon doesn’t appear, you might need to re-enable it. To troubleshoot other issues, go here.

Q: Are there compatibility issues depending on my Team Foundation client version?

A: Yes. For details, see Compatibility between Team Foundation clients and Team Foundation Server.

Q: Can stakeholders who don’t use Visual Studio participate on our team?

A: Yes. You can provide access to stakeholders who have no CAL for the following activities:

• Stakeholder access: This view allows anyone on your team to check project status and provide feedback. Stakeholders can track project priorities and provide direction, feature ideas, and business alignment to a team.

  To grant stakeholders access, add them to the Stakeholder access group in TWA.

• Provide feedback: To allow your stakeholders to provide feedback, you must grant them specific permissions.

• View dashboards and reports: Depending on the resources configured for your team project, you might have a combination of reports and dashboards that you may want other members within your organization to access. For these stakeholders to view and refresh reports, you must assign them the required permissions.

Q: Are there other clients that connect to TFS? Are there other tools I can use?

A: Yes. You can find several open-source clients that have been added to Codeplex.

Also, Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2013 Power Tools provides enhancements, tools, and command-line utilities that increase productivity of Team Foundation Server scenarios.

And, the Team Foundation Administration Console connects to TFS to support administrative tasks.