Team Foundation Server is Microsoft's collaborative suite for software development. A major feature of Team Foundation Server is Team Foundation Build, which provides integrated build management for software development projects.
FinalBuilder can be used to augment and customize Team Build. FinalBuilder integrated with TFS provides additional support for 3rd party tools and a graphical environment for automating your build process.
FinalBuilder Integrates Directly With Team Foundation Build
FinalBuilder can be used with an existing Team Build process without changing the core Team Build functionality. Integrating FinalBuilder means you can automate every aspect of your build, configuration and release process.
An instructional guide for integrating FinalBuilder and Team Build is available here.
How Does FinalBuilder Augment Team Foundation Build?
Integrate 3rd Party Tools
FinalBuilder allows you to integrate with dozens of third-party and legacy tools. Examples include Visual Studio 2003, Java, Visual Basic and Delphi compilers; as well as installer builders like InstallShield and Nullsoft Installer. Plus other compilers, install builders, and testing tools. As well as actions for email, FTP, IIS and much more.
When extending Team Foundation Build with FinalBuilder, statistics from third-party testing frameworks like NUnit and MbUnit can even be injected into the Team Foundation Data Warehouse, for automatic inclusion in project reports.
For a complete list of the third party and legacy tools FinalBuilder supports, see the FinalBuilder feature matrix.
Customise Your Build Without Editing XML
Traditionally, any extension of Team Foundation Build requires hand-editing of custom XML files. This is time consuming, error-prone and difficult to maintain in the long term.
FinalBuilder provides a structured graphical interface for creating a maintainable build process. This interface has been carefully crafted to make it as easy-to-use as possible to simplify the automation of even the most complex aspects of your build process. Try it for yourself with the free 30 day evaluation of FinalBuilder.
Isolate Problems Efficiently
Team Build log output is a flat text file. Poring through pages of this unstructured output is an inefficient method for isolating problems with your automated build process; which is why FinalBuilder provides hierarchical logs.
FinalBuilder’s logs can capture output from both FinalBuilder and Team Foundation Build. Their hierarchical design makes it easy to see the structure of your build process and quickly isolate problems, especially when the built-in filters are used to show only errors in the build or log files are exported as HTML or XML.
Custom Version Management
Team Foundation Build implements a default versioning scheme. Implementing a custom scheme using MSBuild can be extremely complicated; which is why FinalBuilder's built-in support for Property Sets can be so useful in Team Foundation Build. This feature makes it easy to create a custom versioning system for your products, and apply it at all stages of the build process.
Extend or Replace
It's your choice. FinalBuilder can augment and customize an existing Team Build process without changing the core Team Build functionality. Alternatively, it can replace the standard Team Build project with a custom FinalBuilder project.
Using FinalBuilder with Team Build means less developer hours wasted on developing the build process, a more adaptable and comprehensive build process and a more maintainable build - all-in-all, a better "bus factor".
To learn more, check out a hands-on demonstration of integrating FinalBuilder and Team Build Integration.