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Azure DevOps YAML Pipelines: How to Set an Environment Variable during a Build or Release
I got a question from a user of my EF Core Migrations deploy utilities last week. He was running into problems where “dotnet ef database update” was picking up the wrong version of his appsettings.json config file. At first, it looked like it was a problem with my utility’s code but after some more digging,…
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Tip: How to Skip a Continuous Integration Build for an Azure DevOps Git Commit
It doesn’t happen a lot but sometimes you’ve got a git commit that you know that there’s no reason to build. For example, you’re committing a change to a Git repo and that change only has some minor documentation change. Basically, it’s something that would never effect a build or a release so there’s no…
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“TF31002: Unable to connect” error from Visual Studio 2013, Visual Studio 2012, & Visual Studio 2010
I recently ran into a strange problem while doing an upgrade from Team Foundation Server to Azure DevOps Server 2020 for a client. Everything upgraded smoothly but users running older versions of Visual Studio couldn’t connect. They were getting the dreaded “TF31002: Unable to connect to this Team Foundation Server” error if they tried to…
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Azure DevOps Server 2020: Missing Sprint Burndown Dashboard Widgets
I recently did an Azure DevOps Server 2020 upgrade for a client. We took their Team Foundation Server 2017 (TFS2017) instance, migrated the data to new hardware, and upgraded it to Azure DevOps 2020. Everything seemed to be fine but we got a report of a strange issue with the project Dashboards. This user wanted…
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Convert your TFVC Source Control to Git: The #1 Most Hidden Feature in all of Azure DevOps
Did you know that there’s a way to convert your existing Azure DevOps TFVC source code to Git? This post will show you how.
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An Easier Way to Manage Permissions in Azure DevOps
When you’re managing permissions in Azure DevOps Server or in Azure DevOps Services, often you’re tempted to add people directly to your project or directly to a team. It’s not wrong exactly but over time it tends to get messy – especially if you’re adding the same people to new projects and new teams over…
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Azure DevOps Server 2020 Install Guide
Hey All — I just published my Azure DevOps Server 2020 Installation Guide. This guide continues the tradition going back to 2009 of publishing installation guides for each new version of Team Foundation Server and Azure DevOps Server. Here’s the list of chapters the Azure DevOps Server 2020 guide: Install Windows Server 2019 Install SQL…
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Azure DevOps Pipelines: Understanding Pre-Deploy and Post-Deploy Approvals
Azure DevOps Release Pipelines has a nifty feature called Approvals. Let’s say that you have a couple different stages (aka. “environments”) in your release pipeline – Test and Production. A simple test/prod release pipeline Without approvals turned on, when your release pipeline is triggered, the Test and Production stages run automatically. If you enable Approvals,…
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Azure DevOps Server 2019 Install Guide
Hey All — I just published my Azure DevOps Server 2019 Installation Guide. You may or may not have heard this already but Team Foundation Server (TFS) has been renamed to Azure DevOps Server. This guide continues the tradition going back to 2009 of publishing installation guides for each new version of TFS. Here’s the…
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Slides from VSLive Chicago 2018: “Real World Scrum with Azure DevOps & TFS”
As promised, here are the slides from my Real World Scrum with TFS2018 and Azure DevOps talk at VSLive Chicago 2018. Real World Scrum with Team Foundation Server 2018 & Azure DevOps (aka. Visual Studio Team Services) You’ve got Team Foundation Server 2018 or Azure DevOps and you’re looking to do Scrum. Ok. Great. Now…