We would like to add a tab to the work items that is similar to the History tab in its functionality, but only lists times where the work item state transitioned and who did it.

I could figure it out by reading the database, but this isn't recommended since the DB schema could change. Also, I would need some way to perform a query when the work item's form is shown.

I could add a trigger to modify a custom field that contained the information, but again, the trigger would be referencing the schema. Also, I don't like adding to the database in this fashion.

If there is an event that is fired every time a work item is changed, I could have the event call a web service and let it modify a custom field if the state had changed. This seems to be the best option for future-proofing the solution.

Is there an event that is fired on work item changed? Is there some other option I am missing?

Thanks for any help.

Mike,

If we are talking about modifying work items in Visual Studio, you could write Visual Studio add-in that will hook up onto work item events. I believe event that are of interest to you is Saving event of IWorkItemDocument interface. There you can change field values (according to your logic) before item is saved. Also, should you decide to do something every time field is changed before saving, there is Item.FieldChanged event in IWorkItemDocument, so you can review every user change as he edits work item.

The documentation on that is rather scant, but you can look at Naren Datha blog (entry1 and entry2) for some details. Should you have specific question, post them and I will try to answer.

Hope that helps,

Eugene

Looks like some good information. Only problem I see is it looks like that describes client-side addins. I would like to make my add-in to run on the TFS server so I don't have ensure the all the developers have it installed in order for the work items to get updated.

Thanks for the info Naren.

One question though. I need to put this information on a tab on the bug work item form. Every sample form modification I've seen only allows you to show an existing field in the database. Is there a sample on how to execute a query and show its results on the form? Or would I need to write some kind of custom control like the history control, and is there an example of that?

Ok, in the mean time, how about this?

1. I add a new field to the work item.

2. I subscribe to the workitemchanged event with a web service.

3. In the web service, I check if the state changed, and if so, I append text about the change to my added field from above.

4. I add my tab to the bug template, and display my custom field in the new tab.

Will this work? This is what I am trying to do right now, but I am getting an error trying to get the WorkItemStore.

...

WorkItemStore wiStore = null;

Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Client.TeamFoundationServer server = null;

WorkItemChangedEvent workItemChangedEvent = this.CreateInstance<WorkItemChangedEvent>(eventXml);

TFSIdentity tfsIdentity = this.CreateInstance<TFSIdentity>(tfsIdentityXml);

foreach (StringField sField in workItemChangedEvent.ChangedFields.StringFields)

if (sField.ReferenceName == "System.State")

server = TeamFoundationServerFactory.GetServer(tfsIdentity.Url);

wiStore = new WorkItemStore(server);

Naren,

I wonder if the solution above gets implemented, would it be possible to convert it to custom control once SP1 is ready?

Thanks, Eugene