Book excerpt: Take your expertise to the next level by unraveling various techniques to customize TFS 2015 About This Book Learn how to efficiently modify your TFS-specific dashboards for complex server plugins Find out the pros and cons of various extension points and customizations in TFS A fast-paced guide with highly concentrated information on TFS customizations Who This Book Is For This book is intended for anyone with experience with TFS, and in particular, those intermediate users who want to add more value to their organization by making its TFS users more productive. The book requires basic coding skills. What You Will Learn Customize TFS 2015 dashboard and administer various components Configure board cards, swim lanes, and columns Explore the types of changes that can be made on the TFS process templates Create your own custom control for the Web and client work item forms Build up new check-in policies Get to grips with your personal server plugins and their uses Customize both XAML builds and the new build system Schedule jobs for more complicated business rules to run on a schedule Extend your TFS possibilities with service hooks and VSO extensions In Detail Team Foundation Server is an efficacious collaboration tools that will allow you to share code, track records, software, all in a single package. Integrate it with your existing IDE or editor and let your team work in a flexible environment that adapts to projects of all shapes and sizes. Explore what gives you the edge over other developers by knowing the tips and quick fixes of customizing TFS. Effectively minimize the time users spend interacting with TFS so that they can be more productive. In this book you will quickly cover lots of TFS extension points, from the very basic task of customizing and configuring dashboards to customizing automated builds and check-in policies. You will learn how to create dashboards in TFS 2015, as well as add tiles, graphs, and more useful modifications. You'll perform customizations that make TFS work for you by streamlining your team's boards. You'll cast modifications to the process template and learn the tips and tricks required to make efficient and valuable uses of your team's board. From team-specific dashboards to complex server plugins, everything is covered in this concentrated guide to aid your knowledge. Delving deep, this book covers the pros and cons of check-in policies, as well as their proper debugging and deployment strategies. After that you will learn about advanced XAML builds and TFS jobs to further experiment with the activities of your jobs on your system. Finally, you will learn about service hooks and the amazing utility of .VSO extensions to help you create new extensions and explore new levels of customization. Style and approach This is an easy-to-follow guide with clearly explained and demonstrated examples.