Create a TFS Field that contains Assigned Date

The default TFS workitems does not have a field that records last “Assigned To” date. You can easily create a new field to record this date

Start by creating a new Field Definition

Create a new rule of type WHENCHANGED

Select Field System.AssignedTo

Create a new rule of type SERVERDEFAULT

Select from “clock”

The field Assigned Date is now created and will be updated when the workitem is assigned or re-assigned.

If you prefer to modify the XML directly here is the snippet:

 <FIELD name="Assigned Date" refname="NTS.AssignedDate" type="DateTime" reportable="dimension">
        <WHENCHANGED field="System.AssignedTo">
          <SERVERDEFAULT from="clock" />
        </WHENCHANGED>
      </FIELD>

Workflow - Use url when creating a link in workflow steps

This may be obvious, but if you choose text instead of url in a link that you create in SharePoint Designer you can get an invalid link since the text version also includes the title

Ex: “http://mysite.mydom.com, Link Title”

In my case a link already existed in a SharePoint ListItem as a valid URL. But when added as a link in a mail the url got the trailing comma and title. Which in turn gave the webserver an invalid parameter.

The link that should have been:

…/wi.aspx?pcguid=d6d9eacb-0d67-4b19-ad62-626ab5cc1cf0&id=916

became

…/wi.aspx?pcguid=d6d9eacb-0d67-4b19-ad62-626ab5cc1cf0&id=916,%20Click%20to%20open%20the%20WorkItem%20in%20TFS

and the TFS Web did not like ID’s with comma and text…

Remember to modify default.aspx after enabling “Wiki Page Home Page”

When enabling this feature you are modifying the default homepage of your site. The homepage will go from …/Default.aspx to …/SitePages/Home.aspx

When users have added bookmarks using the default.aspx homepage the users will still use your old homepage.

Quickfix edit the default.aspx file using SharePoint Designer and make a redirect to the new page. Or just add a Content editor and insert a script or descriptive text to update bookmarks