Customizing the TFS 2008 build sequence to avoid compilation and deploy SSRS

Posted by Andrew on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by Andrew
Published on 2010-06-15T02:14:44Z Indexed on 2010/06/15 3:12 UTC
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I'm trying to create a CI process for SQL Server Reporting Services. I am fairly new to TFS but quite experienced with MSBuild. In the past I've used a combination of MSBuild with Team City so the whole build process is more or less custom.

Here lies the start of my problems, as the solution I am deploying only contains Report Server projects (rds), no compilation is required. I thought that I would override the the first default task that TFS runs (EndToEndIteration) to override the default TFS build sequence and inject my own.

The first snag that I have come across is that the build always fails, how can I set the status of the build to success? Currently the EndToEndIteration task is very light and only has a message.

Is this the best method to create a custom build process in TFS where compilation is not required? Or should I use the default sequence and override one of the hook tasks mentioned in

The core steps that I'd like to achieve are:

  1. Bundle the RDL and datasource files
  2. Connect to the host server to register/deploy the reports
  3. Re-apply any subscriptions that previously existed
  4. Run tests to verify the deployment succeeded and is returning results as expected

I have found another article on Report services deployment:

But it doesn't mention the best practice for customizing the standard build process.

Any help would be appreciated.

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