Printing Work Items in TFS

Question

I am looking for a fancy way the print individual work items in TFS. OK ... maybe not the work item directly but I need to produce printable forms based on data on a work item. And by fancy I mean: header, footer, formatting, tables maybe ... stuff like that.

No, I am not trying to print a list of work items, read carefully, I need an output based on a single work item.

For those who are wondering "Why on earth do you need that?" I should say: We are keeping everything on TFS around here. (For now only software development stuff, but I am thinking bigger...) Sometimes somethings need to be on hard copy, to be signed for instance, and that is why I need printable forms.

Use the TPS4TFS reporting package and make sure to use The Red Stapler. ;) — Hamish Grubijan, Jun 02 '10 at 17:03
Duplicate question: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/211488/tfs-sprint-item-print-plug-in — Morten Frederiksen, Mar 26 '13 at 12:56

e-mre · Accepted Answer · 2013-05-07T07:34:58.487

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I came up with a solution a little interesting from my point of view.

I used the "mail merge" function of MS Word to print work items. I prepared an SQL query that reads whatever fields are needed from TFS database and set the query as a datasource for mail marge.

Now I can design a word document of any kind and use TFS fields in the document. I just select the appropriate record by work item number and voila!! my printable work item is ready.

It is a little slow when selecting a work item if you use a query that returns all work items, but who is perfect? Right ?

edited May 07 '13 at 07:34

answered Jan 19 '11 at 08:12

e-mre

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That's actually a great solution. – Robaticus Jan 19 '11 at 13:30
Do you download excel file from TFS or do you create dataconnection directly from Word to TFS? In case how is that done? – HaavardMeling Oct 17 '12 at 11:31
Excel does not take place in the process. You have to do some digging into the TFS database and find the data you need. You prepare an SQL query that gathers data (from multiple tables if needed). You use the "mail merge" feature of MS Word (which connects to TFS DB with your query) to return the needed data and build the document format you need for the printout. – e-mre Nov 01 '12 at 12:05

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 02 '10 at 16:59

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Though I agree that Reporting Services is probably the best way to accomplish this, you could alternatively write a web application that queries TFS and formats the data into a nice, printable HTML page. If you really wanted to, you could even look at some of the PDF libraries that are out there and just form-fill a PDF.

answered Jun 02 '10 at 16:59

Robaticus

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For PDF ... LaTeX is open source and crazy customizable, but ... involves a learning curve, and the difficulty depends on how fancy you want to make it. Chances are that LaTeX is more customizable than anything else. It is also free! MikTeX for Windows is great! – Hamish Grubijan Jun 02 '10 at 17:08

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Oct 31 '13 at 18:57

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Here is an other free tool which can print tfs workitems:

http://blog.bbv.ch/2013/10/31/tfs-print/

answered Oct 31 '13 at 18:57

guest

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score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Oct 08 '12 at 13:02

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ALM Rangers recently posted a tool on CodePlex which is actually an add-in for MS Word. What it does is connect to a query on TFS and create a word documents based on a print template.

http://vsarword4tfs.codeplex.com/

answered Oct 08 '12 at 13:02

e-mre

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score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Jun 02 '10 at 15:48

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You can use the Reporting services to create nice reports.

Access to the reporting services. http://[tfsservername]/reports

Use the report designer with the standard cube's.

Here a link to get you started

answered Jun 02 '10 at 15:48

Ralf de Kleine

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I wouldn't point at the cube for this. Point at the TFSWarehouse. – Robaticus Jun 02 '10 at 16:57

Printing Work Items in TFS

5 Answers5