Getting Started With Visual Studio Team Services

In this article, we will discuss the Visual Studio Team Services in details. Also, we will walk through VSTS features, compare VSTS and TFS, and learn how to create VSTS account and how to publish the source code to VSTS.

In this article, we will learn the following.

• What is VSTS?
• Comparison with VSTS and TFS
• Walkthrough VSTS features
• How to create Visual Studio Team Service account
• How to create a new project in VSTS
• How to add existing project to Git Repo from Visual Studio

Prerequisite

1. Microsoft Account
2. Visual Studio 2017

What is VSTS?

VSTS is an ALM. VSTS provides an integrated, collaborative environment that supports Git, continuous integration, and agile tools.

The three main key areas in VSTS as following.

1. Source control to manage versioning of source code files.
2. Tracking tools to support planning and tracking work, code defects, issues and so on.
3. DevOps tools to support building, testing, and continuous release of software apps.

Comparison with VSTS and TFS

S.No.	VSTS	TFS
1	Cloud offering	On-premises offering
2	Git Version Control (i.e. DVCS)	TFVC Version Control (i.e. CVCS)
3	We can use the inheritance process model which supports WYSIWYG customization.	We can use the on-premises XML process model which supports customization through import/export of XML definition files for work tracking objects.
4	Does not support integration with SharePoint or Project server	It supports integration with SharePoint or Project Server
5	You can authenticate with Microsoft Account or Azure Active Directory	You can authenticate with Windows Authentication or Active Directory
6	Does not support integration with SSRS	It supports integration with SSRS

Walkthrough VSTS features

As you all know, VSTS is a powerful productivity tool for improving the software development process. You can see list of features available in the VSTS as following,

1. Git
2. TFVC
3. Agile Tools
4. Continuous Integration
5. Tools for Java Teams
6. Reporting
7. Release Management
8. Package Management
9. DevOps
10. Testing Tools
11. Cloud based load testing and more.

How to create Visual Studio Team Services account

You can go to Visual Studio Team Service web page, Click Free Account as shown below

 

You can sign up for Visual Studio account with your personal Microsoft account as shown below

 

 
After successfully logging in to VSTS, you can see the host my project page as shown below

 
Now, you can enter the following details as shown below

 
If you want to change above details such as manage code, organize work using, host your projects in, your name, from and Email but in my case I didn’t change those details. Click Continue button.

 
After successfully creating VSTS account, you can see your project details as shown below



How to create a new project in VSTS

After successfully logging in to VSTS, you can see new project button on my home page. Click New project as shown below

 
Create new project window opened. Now, you can enter the project name and description. Click Create button.
 
After successfully creating HelloWorld project, you can see your project details as shown below


How to add existing project to Git Repo from Visual Studio

I already created a sample MVC application using Visual Studio 2017 on my desktop. Now, we can open Visual Studio 2017 with my existing project. Once the project is opened, you can see the bottom of Visual Studio 2017 status bar and find the Add to Source Control, click Add to Source Control button as shown below

 

 

The team explorer window will be opened, you can see the two option as following,

1. Push to Visual Studio Team Services
2. Push to Remote Repository

We already created Git repository in VSTS. So we can do push to remote repository now by clicking Push Git Repo as show below



Now, you can copy and paste the Git Repo URL from the VSTS. Click Publish button as shown below

 
After successfully publishing source code to VSTS, you can see the all the source code files in the respective project of VSTS

 
Reference

• https://www.visualstudio.com/en-us/docs/overview

Conclusion

I hope you understand now about VSTS, how to create VSTS account, how to create a new project in VSTS and how to add an existing project to Git Repo from Visual Studio. I have covered all the required things. If you find anything missing, please let me know.

Please share your valuable comments or feedback to improve my future articles.