Team Foundation Server 2015 Update 1 – New Features and Improvements

Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2015 Update 1 has been released as the latest version of Microsoft’s Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) platform.

The update adds the ability to host both Git and TFVC repositories within the same team project, allowing seamless switching between version‑control systems after installing Visual Studio 2015 Update 1.

Web version‑control pages have been improved: the commit details view now highlights merge information, default diff shows changes against parent 1, and creating or cloning empty Git repositories is easier from Visual Studio, Xcode, Eclipse, or the command line.

Kanban board columns now expose three new fields—Board Column, Completed Column, and Board Lane—that can be queried, charted, exported to Excel, and used in style rules.

SonarQube analysis can be run from Maven build tasks and from MSBuild‑embedded SonarQube tasks on both local and hosted agents, with dedicated “Begin Analysis” and “End Analysis” steps.

Backlog and board views now support multi‑selection, enabling bulk reorder, relationship reset, drag‑and‑drop to iterations or mapping panes, context‑menu actions, bulk edit, and bulk assign.

Board cards can be colored and styled based on tags, and titles can have custom colors and styles via the Settings → Style and Settings → Tag Color options.

Checklist tasks can be added and edited directly on parent cards, with summary status indicating completed versus remaining items.

Dashboards are now fully customizable: administrators can rearrange, add, or remove widgets, create multiple dashboards, and use new widgets such as condition query tiles, code tiles (showing recent commits), query result widgets, and markdown widgets.

Board columns and lanes can be renamed inline without opening a configuration dialog.

A new Pull Request hub appears in Team Explorer, streamlining creation and management of pull requests directly from Visual Studio.

Work items can be referenced in pull‑request discussions using “#ID”, providing clickable links and a light‑box view.

Branch policies now require associated work items for any pull request, enforcing traceability before code is merged.

Capacity planning has been enhanced: users can be added or removed from sprint capacity, and multiple activities can be assigned to a single team member.

Any work item can be dragged from any backlog or board into a sprint iteration.

Panels can be added directly to backlog views, simplifying the process of moving items into sprint backlogs.

Burndown charts now display an additional line representing actual capacity, helping teams gauge progress against available effort.

When columns are changed, cards are automatically reordered to stay in the intended position, and automatic scrolling has been removed.

Gear icons on backlog and board pages provide direct access to all configuration settings for those views.

Empty fields on cards can be hidden, reducing visual clutter.

Card styling rules can be created based on any custom field value, allowing rich visual cues on the board.

Query editors can now limit the displayed values for work‑item types, filtering out irrelevant options.

Manual testing now supports exporting test plans, suites, configurations, and results, including detailed fields such as run time, version, and tester.

Manual test data‑driven results and iterations can be viewed directly in Test Center, with support for comments, attachments, and screenshots.

Build resource access control has been improved: administrators can add permissions to agent queues, restricting who can use them in build definitions.

Team Build source‑control integration now allows client mapping of TFVC folders and reduces path length in default working directories.

Several usability bugs in the Build Resource Explorer have been fixed, including the “My Builds” context menu and default XAML build behavior.

Test result retention policies let teams automatically clean up old test data, with separate settings for automated and manual results, and integration with the new Build vNext retention system.

XAML build parity adds features such as source‑file tagging for Git/TFVC and client workspace mapping for TFVC.

Commit detail summaries are now easier to read, with the commit message shown first and the diff against parent 1 displayed by default.

Cloning empty Git repositories and existing repositories is now more straightforward from Visual Studio, with options to generate personal access tokens or use the Clone button.

Build workflows now support Azure Resource Group deployment tasks and ARM templates, enabling automated provisioning of Azure resources like VMs and SQL databases.

Continuous delivery pipelines can include Azure Resource Manager steps to pre‑provision resources and apply extensions such as DSC.

The Error List can be filtered to show only errors, warnings, and messages in files with pending changes.

A standalone Office integration installer has been re‑introduced, providing Excel and PowerPoint integration for non‑developer users.

For a complete list of technical improvements, bug fixes, and known issues, see the associated Knowledge Base article.