Setting TFS 2013 so that users can only see bugs

Question

I would like to set up TFS 2013 so that TFSGroup1 (test) can only see bugs and TFSGroup2 (developers) can see product back log items and bugs. There is a request against this but it doesn't appear that there is an out of the box solution to this so I'm looking for the best work around.

My initial try at this was to use Areas - so that bugs would always be under the Test area and other PBIs would be under a number of other areas. Security could then be set appropriately against the work area node. Unfortunately new bugs cannot have a default are set (limitation of the template) even when editing them with witadmin.

I'm happy to upgrade to TFS 2015 if this has a better permissions model.

Answer 1

Area Path security is really your only option to restrict access to a Work Item completely. You could add a reasonably nasty workaround to make PBIs read-only for the testers, using the process described here:

Making TFS 2012 Work Item Types Read-Only Based on User Roles

In this scenario I'd probably go for an TFS Alert instead, so if testers were editing PBIs then I'd get an email and I could go round there to administer some re-education.

That said, and you may have a good reason to want to do this, but usually I want to see my developers and testers integrated, working in parallel and communicating with each other rather than putting up more restrictions between them.

Answer 2

It is not possible to do what you want. Your best bet would be to create a custom UI to show only bugs that the other users can use.

This configuration will likely never be supported as it represents a significant amount of dysfunction in interaction between your test and dev teams. You should have cross-functional feature teams if coders and testers who work together as a team to get things done. Separating the two groups introduces significant business risk and additional cost to your development process.