How can I create an integration with Microsoft TFS 2013?
Our company uses SDP for helpdesk break/fix type requests, and Microsoft TFS for anything related to application development, even break/fix items. Our developers want to see everything in one place and thus do not want to use SDP. We wish to present a unified experience for users that are requesting things from IT, so we tell everyone to log requests through SDP and if it is a development request, we manually move it into TFS. This becomes quite tedious, however we are set on wanting a single mechanism for people to request things from IT and want to keep that as SDP.
To this end, I am curious about creating some sort of automated process to take a request in SDP and turn it into a user story in TFS.
More or less, here is what I would like to be able to accomplish in a somewhat automated fashion:
- Request comes into SDP
- Helpdesk staff identify this as a development request and initiate the process to transfer the request to TFS by clicking a button (or some other action, TBD). The helpdesk staffer clicking the button should be able to select whether this should be filed in TFS as a user story or as a bug.
- SDP hooks into TFS and creates a new user story or bug in the current sprint. This new item should not be assigned to a user in TFS. The body of the bug/user story should be the body of the original request in TFS. In order for the dev team to understand where the new TFS item came from, there should be some text at the top of it such as "This item was automatically created from SDP request # XXXX (http://linktosdp/request?XXXX). The original requester is <Original Requester>, please notify them as to the status of this request."
- After the new TFS item is created, back in SDP a message from the technician that transferred the request to TFS should be sent to the user with text similar to the following: "After review by the helpdesk team, your request has been transferred to TFS for review by the development team. The following <bug / user story> has been created in TFS: <Title of new TFS item, with link to it>. For further information concerning this request, please contact the business analyst team at bateam@mycompany.com." This same text should be added to the resolution field of the SDP request and the request should be marked as resolved.
I know SDP has some support for external actions, but not sure if the full scope of this is feasible within that functionality. If not, my preferred approach would be to use a 3rd party web app that directly modifies the SDP database to set the request as resolved and creates the new work item in TFS. If that's the way I need to accomplish this, can someone please tell me how I can update the resolution for a request and set a request to resolved status via direct database manipulation?
It seems like this ought to be a common request for shops that have separate helpdesk and development groups, but I couldn't find much on it.
Any suggestions on how to approach this?