SharePoint Products requirements for Team Foundation Server

SharePoint is a collaboration product that offers deep integration with Office products like Word, Outlook, and Excel. Although not a TFS requirement, some teams do find SharePoint integration useful. If you want to use SharePoint Products, you must use a supported version and it has to have the Team Foundation Server extension for SharePoint Products installed.

Tip

If you plan to install SharePoint, make sure that the version of SharePoint you want to use is compatible with the server operating system you’re using. Support for server operating systems in TFS is more amenable than in SharePoint.

Here are your main options:

• You can use Team Foundation Server standard or advanced configuration wizards to install SharePoint Foundation 2013 on the same server as Team Foundation Server. The Team Foundation Server extensions for SharePoint Products are installed automatically during Team Foundation Server installation.

• You can use Team Foundation Server extensions for SharePoint Products configuration wizard to install SharePoint Foundation 2013 on a different server from the one running Team Foundation Server.

• You can use SharePoint Server. If you use the enterprise version of SharePoint Server, you must configure it for dashboard compatibility (more on dashboard requirements later).

• You can use a different version of SharePoint Foundation than the one that ships with TFS.

Regardless of which option you choose, your SharePoint Products must meet the following requirements:

Supported versions, editions

SharePoint Foundation 2013¹ SharePoint Server 2013,¹ (Enterprise or Standard edition) SharePoint Foundation 2010² SharePoint Server 2010,² (Enterprise or Standard edition)

Authentication

NTLM is the recommended authentication provider. Team Foundation Server Extensions for SharePoint Products does not support Basic authentication or anonymous authentication. Tip In SharePoint Server 2013, Microsoft deprecated Windows classic-authentication in favor of claims-based authentication. TFS supports both, but for claims-based authentication, the authentication provider must be NTLM. TFS will only support NTLM-based claims.

¹ Not supported on Windows Server 2012 R2. SharePoint 2013 with SP1 (get it now) adds support for Windows Server 2012 R2.

² Not supported on Windows Server 2012 or Windows Server 2012 R2.

Tip

Do you need to upgrade SharePoint to a supported version? See Upgrade from Office SharePoint Server 2007 or Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 to SharePoint Server 2013 or SharePoint Foundation 2013

Dashboard requirements

Team Foundation Server contains dashboards that use SharePoint Products features to display team data. The dashboards that are available to you depend on the version of SharePoint Products that you use.

• If you use any supported enterprise edition of SharePoint Server, you get five dashboards that are based on Microsoft Excel. 

• If you use any other SharePoint Product (including the standard editions of SharePoint Server), you get two dashboards that are based on SQL Server Reporting Services.

Deployment references for SharePoint Products

SharePoint Products has its own guidance for deployment. 

• For more information about how to deploy and configure SharePoint 2013 Products, see the following page on the Microsoft website: Install and configure SharePoint 2013

• For more information about how to deploy and configure SharePoint 2010 products, see the following pages on the Microsoft website: Deployment for SharePoint Server 2010 or Deployment for SharePoint Foundation 2010

How to install SharePoint Products for Team Foundation Server

• How to: Set up remote SharePoint Products for Team Foundation Server
  You can use Team Foundation Server extensions for SharePoint Products configuration wizard to install SharePoint Foundation 2013 on a different server from Team Foundation Server.

• Install Team Foundation Server
  You can use Team Foundation Server standard and advanced configuration wizards to install SharePoint Foundation 2013 on the same server as Team Foundation Server. The Team Foundation Server extensions for SharePoint Products are installed automatically during Team Foundation Server installation.

More SharePoint Products tasks for Team Foundation Server

• Manually Install SharePoint products for Team Foundation Server
  Install and configure SharePoint Server 2013 for use with Team Foundation Server. Although the procedures in this topic are tailored to SharePoint Server 2013, you could use them to install any of the supported SharePoint products. It’s all very similar.

• Add the service account for Team Foundation Server to the Farm Administrators group
  You must add the service account for Team Foundation Server to the Farm Administrators group on the SharePoint products site. Team Foundation Server configures this for you automatically if you install SharePoint Products on the same server as Team Foundation Server.

• Configure the enterprise application definition for Team Foundation Server
  Final configuration is required in the Team Foundation Server extensions for SharePoint Products only if you’re using an enterprise edition of SharePoint Server.

• Verify SharePoint products for Team Foundation Server
  Steps you can use to verify that an existing installation of SharePoint Products is ready to work with Team Foundation Server.