Performing a build

About this task

Your application probably will contain many projects organized into a project hierarchy. You will create a build management project hierarchy, referred to as the Integration Testing projects. These projects will be a part of an Integration Testing project grouping, which will enable you to collect, build, and test the latest completed tasks checked in by developers. The members of this project hierarchy are brought in through a query of all completed tasks for a specific release.

You will want to build your Integration Testing projects frequently to ensure that the tasks completed by developers still work when built together and to provide developers with a common build area for testing purposes. Many teams build these Integration Testing projects daily. You will want to create a build schedule that makes sense for the needs of your team.

Procedure

  1. Right-click over the appropriate Integration Testing project grouping, point to Update, and select All Projects.

    The update operation queries for all completed tasks, replaces them in the Integration Testing project grouping, and updates the membership of the projects.

  2. Show and resolve membership conflicts. (See Resolving membership conflicts in a project or a project grouping LINK for details.)
  3. Build your product.

    After a successful build, you will want to test what you have built by running through a series of basic operations to ensure the integrity of the build, such as start the application, perform a few often-used operations, and exit from the application.

    Note: If your build fails, see Performing a rebuild.
  4. Create a snapshot of a build.

    If you are creating a test baseline for a team to perform further testing, do not publish or release the baseline for use.

    If you want to make the Integration Testing build available to developers right away, set the Publish check box when you create the baseline.

    Note: If the requirements for your team change and you need to add a task to or exclude a task from a build, see Performing a rebuild.

Feedback