TFS 2010 has introduced the notion of Team Project Collection (TPC).  I have already discussed about TPC in my earlier post, you can check it out here.

In this post, I will demonstrate how to create a new Team Project Collection in TFS2010.

First, you have to open the TFS Administration Console (Start à All Programs à Microsoft Team Foundation Server 2010 à Team Foundation Server Administration Console), expand the Application Tier node in TFS Administration Console and click on Team Project Collection.

Here you will see the TPC’s which are already exist, I am having only one TPC named New Collection and I’m going to create a new TPC called Demo Collection. To create a new Team Project Collection, you need to click on Create Collection; it will open the Create New Team Project Collection window.  

 

Under the Name tab, you have to enter the name of Collection which you want to give for your new TPC (I naming it as Demo Collection). You can also provide some description about your TPC in Description tab which is optional and click next.

Here, you need to enter the name of SQL Server Instance where you want your new TPC data to reside.

You have the option either to choose the creating a Database for this TPC or use the already existing empty database and then click next.

 

In next screen, you have to choose SharePoint configuration. Here you have the options to either configure SharePoint Site for TPC at default collections or you can specify the your existing SharePoint site and  you can also choose not  to configure the SharePoint for this collection, if you choose last option then you cannot configure the Share Point sites for the all the Team Projects under this Project Collection. You also have the flexibility to create a Share Point site for this TPC later on, then if you need you have to configure SharePoint site for the existing team projects manually.

 

In next screen, you will have the Reports configuration. Here you have the options to either configure the Reports for TPC at default path or you can specify the path for at existing Reports folder, you can also choose not to configure the Reports for this collection, if you choose last option then you cannot create  the Reports  for the all the Team Projects under this Project Collection. Here also you can enable reporting for this TPC later on.

The next screen is related to Lab Management Configuration, Lab Management is the new feature in TFS2010 which enables the users to create and manage virtual test environments where you can deploy and test your application. There are no options available here as I don’t have the Lab Management configured for my Team Foundation Server.

The next screen is Review Configuration window, which will show up all the configuration settings you have specified, so that you can review the configurations before creating the Team Project Collection. If you want to make any changes to the configurations then you can go back to the previous windows and can make the changes.

After Reviewing the configuration settings, you can click on verify button. Which will verify that if you’re Team Project Collection is ready to be created or not, it will show up the errors and warning (if any) which can make your Team Project Collection fail.

You can then choose to create the Team Project Collection if the verify option doesn’t throw any warnings and errors. If the verify option throws any errors, then it is strongly suggested that you have to first rectify the issues then only go for TPC creation especially in case of warnings as it is a common practice to overlook the warnings.

 

If you choose the create TPC option, then it will start the process of creating a Team Project Collection  and once its completed you can check the status of configuration different components  during Team Project Collection. You can see in below screen that all the components are configured successfully.

 

In next screen, you can find the location of log file created for this Team Project Creation, this log file is really important in case of Team Project creation failure because it will help you to find  the root cause for the failure.

Now, you can see that the New Team Projection (Demo Collection) which was created is now available in Team Foundation Collection tab and its status is Online.

 

You can now try to connect to this Team Project Collection from Team Explorer. Choose the newly created Team Project Collection and click on connect.

 

 

This Team Project Collection is empty because no Team Projects are created yet. Now, you can create the new Team Projects and start working.