Since mid June, Mike Azocar has been running a team system gadget contest. Leaving it right up to the last minute, I have just submitted my entry, TFS Working On.

TFS Working is a simple system tray utility that makes it easier to record your time spent on TFS Work Items.

Immediately after installing, TFS Working On is ready to help you track your time. Simple specify your server and project, then search for your Work Item and you are tracking your time.

This will record your time in the history of the work item whenever you stop working on the item.

You can also specify your estimates against a work item so that you can record how you are going.

With some very simple configuration the estimates can be mapped to the TFS Work Item fields, per work item type, per project. This can be performed by one member of the team, most likely the one responsible for setting up the project, and then stored on the network share for all team members to reference.

This will now allow the estimates to automatically update the work item fields, making it easier to record time spent to help with TFS reporting and evidence based scheduling.

I will be putting the code up soon on CodePlex. This is just version 1, and I have many features I wish to add.

• Activity monitoring - automatically stop recording when computer is inactive for given period of time.
• Visual Studio integration - possibly to the extent that you cannot check out code for editing if you have not specified the work item you are working. This is for very strict scheduling scenarios.
• Check that you are the assigned user for the selected work item
• Bluetooth device linking - link to a Bluetooth device, like a phone, so that when you walk away recording stops (already got the code for this :) )
• Mapping Start and Finish dates
• Possibly allow working on multiple items at once

Update: Project now on CodePlex: http://www.codeplex.com/TFSWorkingOn

Last night I was fortunate enough to participate in the Queensland State Finals for the Demos Happen {Here} competition. Congratulations to David Apelt who did an excellent demo and will be representing Queensland at the national finals at Tech Ed in Sydney. I would also like to thank Andrew Coates and Roger Lawrence for running the competition and hosting the night.