How to Update a Changeset for TFS

There are many reasons why you may need to update a changeset in TFS. If you need to update the comment, please read the post How to Update the comment after check in.

In my environment, I had to do more than this. I have a check-in policy where all changesets must be associated with work items. If the policy is not met, a policy failure can be seen in the changeset reading

You must associate this check-in with one ore more work items. 

This policy can be overridden, but even if you override it, and your changeset is committed, how do you associate a work item with that changeset?

Here is how.

1. Find the changeset number. You can do this by viewing the history for your project.
2. Now open a work item that you want to associate with the changeset. 
3. The work item template should have a "Links" tab. On that tab, "Add" a link.
4. Set the "Link type" to "Changeset". 
5. In the "Link details" section, set the "Changeset:" value to the changeset number you looked up a few moments ago. You can also "Browse" for it if you don't like the "History" approach I mentioned above.
6. Add a meaningful (or meaningless) comment.
7. Click "OK" 

Now, the changeset doesn't have any policy failures (or at least not related to work items).

Scrum Tools: Points in eScrum and TFS in Visual Studio

I have been using the eScrum project template in Microsoft Visual Studio TFS edition for a few sprints now.  Along the way, the team noticed some issues with the template.  In TFS, by navigating to Team > Process Editor > Work Item Types > Open WIT from Server, I opened the eScrum Product Backlog Item template and made some changes.

Points
The Product Backlog Item template is missing a "points" field to indicate the relative size of a PBI.  There is a Baseline Work field, but that is used to represent the number of hours for the PBI in reports. I decided to add a Points field where a dropdown shows Fibonacci based numbers (0, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 20, 40, 100, 250, 500, ?, infinity).  Since there are values such as "?" and "infinity, the field type must be 'String'.  I could have used the Baseline Work field, but that allows people to enter values that could complicate things, such as entering 21 instead of 20.  To avoid the debate, or having to correct this, I added an ALLOWEDVALUES rule to control this.

Query
Now I can create a query to allow me to see what items does the team need to estimate.  By using the team's velocity, this query can include items that are larger than half a sprint, which indicates the team needs to work with the Product Owner to break this down into smaller PBIs.