This readme describes how to configure Micro Focus Azure DevOps Connector. Refer to the Micro Focus Community and Micro Focus Connect Help Center for further configuration instructions.
The Micro Focus Azure DevOps Connector for Micro Focus Connect (Micro Focus Azure DevOps Connector) lets you synchronize Azure DevOps assets like Bugs and Tasks with assets in OpenText Products, for example assets found in the Micro Focus Octane Connector.
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| Installation and Upgrade Information | Technical Notes | |
| Prerequisites | Known Issues | Need assistance with the product? |
This version of the connector is certified with Azure DevOps (hosted), Azure DevOps Server 2022.1.0 and Team Foundation Server 2018 Update 3.2
Unless otherwise specified, for any given MF Connect connector from OpenText, all versions of the connector product that are officially released and supported by it's vendor both four months before the time of the release of the connector as well as at the time of using the connector, are supported by OpenText. Not all product versions will be tested and validated by OpenText for each connector release. Instead, OpenText chooses a subset of versions that we deem representative or most important to run validation and certification tests against. These selected versions are mentioned in the respective connector read-me, clearly identifying them as "validated" or "certified". As stated above, this does not mean that Micro Focus Connect does not support other product versions – it only means that no validation test cycle was executed for the other versions.
This version of the connector supports Agile, Scrum, and CMMI asset types, as well as custom fields and types.
This version of the connector supports Multivalue control extension.
Note: The support of this extension is experimental. It is based on the preview version of Azure API. In case if this API became unavailable, the fallback will work as before for single-value fields.
This connector requires at least build 24.4 of Micro Focus Connect and can be configured using the Micro Focus Connect UI.
The thesaurus.properties file should be copied to the Micro Focus Connect's AppData\data folder.
In order to properly sync content from other products, this connector utilizes the bypass rules option in the Azure DevOps API. The account used to sync must have sufficient rights to use this functionality
The following information contains notes regarding installation, but does not replace the entire process.
In order to use this connector, you will need to collect and enter this information in the Micro Focus Connect user interface:
There are three types of Azure DevOps projects: Agile, Scrum, CMMI. Each project has different types and even properties for those types. All of the projects within a given synchronization must be of the same type. The Sample Project property is the name of a project of the type you wish to use for ALL synchronizations using this datasource. To synchronize projects of several different Azure DevOps project types you must create separate DataSources each with a different value for the Sample Project.
MF Connect will exclude comments that were created before this date (exclusive).
The date format is <year>-<month>-<day>.
For example: The value '2022-01-01' will make MF Connect only process comments that were created
on January, 1, 2022 and after.
Leaving it empty will result in all comments being included for synchronization.
Enables (true) or disables (false) the injection of a comment header to comments that are created or
updated by MF Connect. The comment header consists of: Updated by MF Connect: 'Author' 'UpdateTime'.
'Author' and 'UpdateTime' values are taken from the comment on the opposite side of the connection.
Several Iteration properties were changed from the initial release of the 4.0 TFS connector to 4.1. They are:
If any of these are used in the field mapping, they must be changed to reference the new names. The "modifiedTimeProperty" property must also be changed in the Type definition for the Iteration type in the datasource. If the value is "Changed Date", it should be replaced with "modifiedOn".
TFS 2018 Update 1 (and earlier versions of TFS 2018) have API inconsistencies with later versions of TFS 2018, and are not supported. It's recommended users upgrade to later versions of TFS 2018
Deleting root iteration produces an error. Don't delete the root iteration.
When new projects are created that are of type CMMI, three sprints are created without Start/End dates. Synchronizing these partially defined sprints to products that require Start/End dates will fail. The workaround is to update your Azure Devops setup to automatically create sprints with Start/End dates.
TFS 2018 and earlier releases do not support the deletion of Test Cases via the Rest API. Only the current cloud release of Azure Develops supports the deletion of Test Cases.
Early releases of this connector used the URI as the idProperty for Iteration. If the iteration is renamed, the URI changes which will result in Connect not recognizing the renamed Iteration as the same entity as before it was renamed. This in turn results in a duplicate item being created on the other side. If your datasource has the URI as the idProperty for the Iteration type, it should not be used when creating new Connections which map Iterations - if you ever intend on renaming Iterations. Instead, create a new datasource, which will by default have the "id" property as the value for the "idProperty" attribute on the Types tab for the Iteration type.
Deletes in Azure DevOps cannot be detected by the connector.
When an item is deleted in Azure DevOps, the corresponding item in the other product will not be deleted.
While extensions might work out of the box, Micro Focus Connect does not support all marketplace extensions by default. Your experience with such extensions may vary.
Azure DevOps users can create and configure Queries in the Azure Devops boards.
Users can use them as named external filters within MFConnect.
However, filter terms that Azure DevOps exposes within the Queries are not fully supported by MFConnect.
Queries containing "@Me" are not appropriate for MFConnect.
For example, a query that specifies "Assigned To @Me" will not be exposed in the MFConnect UI because the "@Me"
refers to the user specified in the dataSource.
Queries with types 'Work items and direct links' and 'Tree of work items' are not supported, so they will be omitted.
Additionally, Release and Iteration types do not support external filtering with Queries and WIQL.
Users can configure the free form external filter that can narrow the Azure Devops items to be synchronized. The external filter is configured in MFConnect and applied on the Azure DevOps server. The query syntax is Azure Devops specific and information about this syntax can be found here . It's possible to play with your WIQL queries using Wiql Editor extension for Azure DevOps.
Some filters in the named filter list can be undesirable for the items being synchronized. For example, the filter might indicate "WorkItemType=Bug", and you are currently synchronizing user story items. So, make sure you choose a filter that is appropriate for the type of items you are synchronizing.
Following are some of the known issues with synchronizing markdown comments.
If you are using Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server instead of a hosted instance, you must use tokens for authentication instead of your regular password. For more information, visit the Microsoft help link https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/vsts/accounts/use-personal-access-tokens-to-authenticate.
When using Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server as a hosted instance, you need to turn on basic authentication. For more information, visit https://github.com/Microsoft/tfs-cli/blob/master/docs/configureBasicAuth.md
Azure DevOps does not store historical data for Iteration objects. Therefore the mapping cannot be bi-directional.
The connector does not support impersonation. As such, changes synchronized into Azure DevOps will show the Author as the administrative user specified in the Azure Devops/TFS datasource definition.
Embedded images will not display in IE when using an on-premise TFS installation. They display properly with Firefox and Chrome.
Azure DevOps Iterations do not support bi-directional mapping. Therefore by default they have been set to read-only. However, one way mapping to Iterations can be constructed by changing the Iterations type property Read Only to false. Then a mapping From-Master can be setup to have Iteration both created and modified in Azure DevOps.
If you are reviewing the log file you may see errors like below, these can be ignored. Azure DevOps provides a list of fields that are part of types, but some of the fields don't actually exist. These calls are made to determine which of these fields are not available.
ERROR (http-nio-8081-exec-10) [BasicHTTP(processError:50)] responseCode:404 rootURL:https://<server>/b616bf14-021a-47e9-85a0-59e1c16cbc77/_apis/wit/fields/System.IterationLevel7
ERROR (http-nio-8081-exec-10) [BasicHTTP(processError:62)] Throwing com.connect.api.exceptions.BCException: {"$id":"1","innerException":null,"message":"TF51535: Cannot find field System.IterationLevel7.","typeName":"Microsoft.TeamFoundation.WorkItemTracking.Server.Metadata.WorkItemTrackingFieldDefinitionNotFoundException, Microsoft.TeamFoundation.WorkItemTracking.Server","typeKey":"WorkItemTrackingFieldDefinitionNotFoundException","errorCode":0,"eventId":3200}
If the projects you wish to sync are based off of a custom process, in order for connect to know the project type the custom process must contain CMMI/Scrum/Agile as part of the name.
State property type is a String in 2018 Server below Update 3.2.
Comment syncing is supported for all types except Releases and Iterations. By default, comment syncing is enable for each type. Comment functionality is controlled for each type via 3 type specific properties on the datasource properties TYPE tab - Allow Comment Create, Allow Comment Update, and Allow Comment Delete.
The "Area Path" field is exposed as a readable/writable string (Note: in previous releases, it was a readOnly string). But, the only acceptable values must have already been created in the Azure Devops UI via the Project->Areas screen. Setting the "Area Path" field to a value that doesn't match an acceptable value will cause an exception and prohibit this item from synchronizing.
The "Tags" property exposes the tags ( if present in the item ) as a semi-colon delimited string. The "TagList" property exposes the same data as a multi-value String property. Both properties support updating.
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