Microsoft has released Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2013 Power Tools with support for release candidate editions of Visual Studio 2013 and Team Foundation Server 2013. It includes a diagnostic tool which mainly verifies whether the TFS is configured according to standard practices including an ability to locate source of problems in an unhealthy deployment. Moreover, you will be able to capture a snapshot of the deployment configuration in addition to gathering of usage metrics about the volume of data stored or accessed in the past 14 days.
The power tools includes a check-in policy visual studio add-in that can be located from the source control menu option under Team menu. It adds custom path, forbidden patterns and work item query policies.
Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2013 Power Tools includes a new process template editor which provides a GUI for customizing field, workflow and the form work items in addition to process templates. On the other hand, the storyboard shapes tool provides an ability to create shapes for the PowerPoint storyboarding add-in with custom resize logic.
Moreover, the tool also includes additional Viusal Studio menu option which enables you to find files under version control by status or wildcard including the ability to open a folder using File Explorer from the Source Control Explorer context menu.
The latest release includes Team Foundation power tool command line executable - tfpt.exe, which provides additional version control commands such as addprojectportal, addprojectreports, annotate, bind, branches and builddefinition includinng efficient tracking of work item and manipulation of team project. It also includes a test attachment cleaner,
Windows PowerShell Cmdlets, Windows Shell extensions, that enables you to integrate projects with Windows Explorer and the common file dialogs.
With the help of work item templates included with the TFS 2013 power tools, developers will be able to create new work items with default values or to easily apply values to existing work items.