Hi all, recently I came over a consult of a friend, on a situation he wanted to solve in his company. Basically was that they had a call center, external to them, those who wanted to give access to the Team foundation Server, but only to register and keep track of the Work Items created by the users of the call center (each user their own nothing else).

Posed me questions about, whether to publish Sharepoint portal, digital licensing, etc.

The thing is relatively simple, and we will support in two things, the publication of the website (not the Sharepoint) of Team Foundation Server, that has a url such as http://TFSSERVER:8080/tfs, and an exception in the licensing of TFS, which allowseWe have users, who can create Work Items, and keep track of those (only) Work Items created by them, without having to leave. This exception, from TFS 2010, applied both to internal users and external to the organization.

But we are going step by step, the first thing is to publish the website of TFS, as many already know, TFS is installed in IIS as a web site, Team Foundation Server name, so first thing, and I am not going to explain here, it is to publish this web site, to make it accessible from outside, either HTTP or HTTPS (the most recommended).

The next step is, in the TFS server using the Management Console, (start | Programs | Microsoft Team Foundation Server 2010 |Team Foundation Administration Console), in the Application Tier section, have a link to change the URL:

When you click that link, on the next screen, you will ask the Notification URL and the URL Server, just change the notifications, so that when issuing notifications by email for example, the links to Work Items, etc. point to the external Url. The next step is to add the users you want to have this feature, the Group of Team Foundation Server Work Item Only View Users, do this also from the management console, using the link Group Membership:

On the next screen shows all the global groups in Team Foundation Server, we select the Work Item Only View Users, and click on Properties, select on the next screen Windows user or group:

Already we can, with the Add… button Add call center users, or those who wish, also, from Visual Studio 2010, in the properties of the Team Project that we want to give access, we also have to add these users to the Group of Contributors, so they can connect with the Team Project.

When these users from accessing http://miservidorTFS.com:8080/tfs, you will see the web portal of only management of Work Items, which can only see their own work item:

 

Several reminders, to do all this, you need to be administrator of TFS, and connect remote TFS server desktop, that the management console can only be used in local.

And, of course, if users have access to source code, reports, documentation, or any other type of information to TFS, this not you worth, because they need a Client Access License (CAL) of TFS 2010.