Earlier this week I had the opportunity to sit for Microsoft exam 70-497: Software Testing with Visual Studio 2012. Having successfully passed this exam (my 56th MS exam), I am now officially a Microsoft Quality Enablement Specialist. Here’s a copy of the certificate.

From the Microsoft Learning website, they state the audience for this exam is software testers. Typically those people that manage the process of running tests, creating and monitoring bugs, and managing and mitigating issues that a software organization has in controlling test coverage for project requirements. In short, basically it focuses on Microsoft Test Manager 2012.

What’s the best way to prepare for the exam?

Option A: Self-study

• The Microsoft Learning website has information about the exam including the Skills Being Measured. This is a checklist of the topics you need to know well before attempting the exam. If you learn best by researching yourself and using the tool, this is your best option.

Option B: Classroom based training (including remote online)

• How I personally prepared for the exam was to update a course I had written for TFS 2010 to the latest 2012 release. While you could always write your own training course to help you get ready for the exam, it might be a lot quicker for you to attend one of my courses. (View course outline

  Download PDF)

• Upcoming courses in the United States (More info)
  • December 3rd & 4th, 2012
  • February 7th & 8th, 2013
  • April 15th & 16th, 2013
• Upcoming courses in Australia (More Info)
  • 17th & 18th January 2013 (SYD)
  • 4th & 5th Mar 2013 (MEL)
  • 6th & 7th Mar 2013 (CBR)
• Enquire about having this course run onsite for you anywhere in the world
  • Email enquiry@alm-training.com

Microsoft has recently release three new exams for TFS 2012. This is a big change from the single exam that has been available for previous versions of TFS.

As the author of 6 comprehensive training courses for TFS 2012, I wanted to let anyone studying to take the 70-497 exam know that the following 2-day course is a great way to prepare yourself to take the exam.

• Software Testing with Microsoft Visual Studio 2012
  (View course outline | Download Course outline – PDF)

The course pre-dated the release of the exam and the primary purpose of the course remains educating people how to use Microsoft Test Manager 2012 effectively. That said, the course covers the majority of topics listed in Microsoft’s official exam preparation guide.

The course is offered in a variety of formats including public classroom based, onsite and remotely online training. Find out more about where and when the course in running at http://www.alm-training.com  If you’re interested in an onsite training course, please email enquiry@alm-training.com.

The Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2012 Power Tools are now downloadable from the Microsoft web site. While there are not many completely new tools in this first RTM release for 2012, all of the tools appear to work equally well with either on-premise or TFS Preview. The focus has clearly been to get these working in the 2012 ecosystem rather than focus on too many new things for this release.

Our old favourites have been polished and enhanced for the 2012 release including;

• Best Practices Analyzer (Invaluable for checking your TFS server is nice and healthy)
• Process Template Editor
• Team Explorer Enhancements
• Find files in source control by status or wildcard
• Open a folder using File Explorer from Source Control Explorer
• Label files and folders in Source Control Explorer
• Clone Builds

• Team Members (Great new features)

• Team Foundation Power Tool Command Line (TFPT)
• Team Foundation Server Backups
• Test Attachments Cleaner
• Windows PowerShell Cmdlets
• Windows Shell Extensions
• Work Item Templates

NEW in this release (in addition to the updates to the tools above of course)

• StoryBoard Shapes Authoring Tool – Helps you create storyboard shapes.

Other related downloads you might be interesting in:

• New iOS, Ipad and iPhone storyboard shapes on Visual Studio Code Galley
• Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2012 Build Extensions
• Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2012 MSSCI Provider (32-bit)
• Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2012 MSSCI Provider (64-bit)

This year I’ve been asked to deliver the following two sessions at TechEd Australia on the Gold Coast.

Both sessions focus on the new release of Team Foundation Server but the sessions have completely different focuses.

• Agile Planning Tools in Team Foundation Server 2012 – Make them your own
• All Aboard the Team Foundation Server Express

If you’re on twitter, make sure you keep an eye on the hashtag #auteched

This year I have the great pleasure of returning to TechEd New Zealand and presenting two breakout sessions on topics near and dear to me.

I haven’t presented the first session previously but the second session is one I have presented at TechEd North America (Orlando) and TechEd Europe (Amseterdam) earlier this year.

• DEV308: Taking Your Application Lifecycle Management to the Cloud with the Team Foundation Service
• DEV309: The Accidental Team Foundation Server Admin Meets 2012

Be sure to check out the entire Session Catalogue for lots of great session.

This year TechEd New Zealand has also gone with RFID tags for all attendees which should provide some interesting and dare I say entertaining information during the conference.

If you’re on twitter, make sure you keep an eye on the hashtag #tenz

Up until recently, users wanting to try out Microsoft’s new hosted TFS offering have required a much sought after invitation code. The reasoning behind this was to control the load on the new and unproven service during it’s initial development phase.

From early June 2012, Microsoft have removed the requirement to have an invitation code to sign up for the hosted Team Foundation Service. At the time of writing there was no news on when the service was expected to go live and what the pricing model might be but for now it’s a great way to start working with hosted TFS 2012.

Visit http://tfspreview.com and sign up for your very own team project collection today.

As one would expect, each new release of Microsoft Visual Studio and Team Foundation Server brings a range of exciting new features and capabilities. Unfortunately many of us may still remember the pain of moving from VS2002 (.NET 1.0) to VS 2003 (.NET 1.1) and then to VS2005 (.NET 2.0). This has caused us to be especially weary of changing to newer versions before we really need to.

With the release of Microsoft Visual Studio “11” Beta, Microsoft have made big investments in ensuring the smoothest possible transition to the next release. Here are a number of ways Microsoft are making it much easier for you to be an early adopter of the Visual Studio “11” Beta range of products.

• Mix and match – Many (not all) project types do not require any form of “upgrade” to be used in Visual Studio “11”. This means you can easily have some team members using Visual Studio 2010 with SP1 while others try out the new Visual Studio “11” on the SAME project! Find out more on the MSDN website.
  • Visual Studio “11” Beta and Visual Studio 2010 can be installed side-by-side on the same machine.
    • While .NET Framework 4.5 has some nice features, Visual Studio “11” can target any existing version of the .NET framework from v2.0 or later. You’re not forced to upgrade and use .NET Framework 4.5.
      • Visual Studio “11” can work with your existing Team Foundation Server 2010. You do not need to upgrade the TFS server.
        • You can choose to upgrade your TFS 2010 server to TFS “11” Beta without needing to upgrade your clients. Simply download and install the Visual Studio 2010 SP1 Team Foundation Server 11 Compatibility GDR on your VS 2010 clients so they can talk to the TFS “11” Beta.
          • Microsoft provides Go Live and support for production use for the Beta release.
            • Microsoft support upgrades from the Beta to the Release Candidate (RC) and then to the Release (RTM) version.

              • All data in Visual Studio 11 Team Foundation Server Beta (work items, source files, tests and test results, builds, and warehouse data) will be carried forward when following supported upgrade paths.</ul> What are you waiting for? There are many great new features and capabilities you’ll just love in Visual Studio “11”. Here are some action items to help you get started.

              • Download the Visual Studio “11” software

                • Download a fully pre-configured Hyper-V machine and try it out
                  • Take a look at the new ALM-Training courses for early adopters </ul>

Get access to Microsoft’s next generation in application lifecycle management, agile project management and software development collaboration services based on the next version of Team Foundation Server running on the Windows Azure platform called: Team Foundation Service Preview  

Every attendee of the Australian ALM conference will receive one of the most sought after previews in the Software Industry -an invitation code for access to Team Foundation Service Preview. For more information about the conference please see www.australianalm.com.au

Next week I am back in Redmond, WA to deliver my Visual Studio 2010 ALM courses through my partner, QuickLearn, Inc. These courses can be attended either in person or by remotely connecting from your home or office. QuickLearn’s unique remote classroom experience makes connecting in remotely a great option and much more economical then flying to Redmond.

There’s still a few spots available if you’d like to register for any of these courses.

• TFS 2010 for Testers – 2 days starting 11th July
• TFS 2010 for Administrators – 3 days starting 13th July
• Implementing TFS 2010 Solutions – 5 days starting 18th July
• TFS 2010 for Project Managers – 2 days starting 1st August

You can register from the register link at http://www.alm-training.com/quicklearn

I have just completed the first delivery of a new 5-day TFS course I have written for a partner in the United States. The course, Implementing TFS 2010 Team Solutions, is a 5-day course covering a wide range of topics around TFS 2010. The course runs as both a classroom/remote classroom and an onsite course for clients on their premises.

The feedback from the attendees was overwhelmingly very positive and here are just a few of the comments provided by the students.

This was an excellent class. I would highly recommend this class to anyone from the beginner to an advanced user that wishes to expand their knowledge on TFS.

Excellent instructor with great knowledge on the software.

Great Course! This is a great course. It covers all the modules of VSTS2010 extensively.

Great Job! Anthony did a great job.

Another metric I was very pleased to see was 100% of attendees indicated they would recommend this course to their colleagues.

If you’re in the US and your interested in attending this new course, we have scheduled the course to run again on the week commencing July 18th, 2011 in Redmond, WA. You can attend the course in person or online via our remote classroom. (More info)

For people interested in this in Australia, stay tuned as I am planning on publishing the course details and scheduling the class around July/August.