Microsoft Excel Integration

You can manage your Team Foundation Server projects by integrating the work item tracking and project structure features of Team Foundation Server with the spreadsheet calculation and editing features of Microsoft Excel.

Integrating Microsoft Excel with Team Foundation Servers

You can use Microsoft Excel to manage work items, including, quickly adding or editing work items, charting work item progress, or scheduling work items. Editing multiple work items is much easier to accomplish in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet than it is within Team Explorer.

The following diagram illustrates the interaction between a Visual Studio Team System client computer that has Microsoft Excel installed and Team Foundation Server.

Communication between the client and the server occurs through Web services and uses SOAP over HTTP.

Limitations

In default configurations, communication between client computers and Team Foundation servers that includes Microsoft Excel communication and work item database updates is sent in unencrypted network traffic.

Security

For users to successfully change the project structure or project iterations, the user account must have appropriate permissions, including the Edit project-level information permission. For more information about permissions, see Team Foundation Server Permissions.

See Also

Concepts

Publishing Work Items

Other Resources

Managing Work Items in Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Project