Essential TFS Process Template Modifications

Out-of-the-box TFS 2010 ships with two very solid process templates, and you can install the Scrum 1.0 template and the Scrum for Team Systems 3.0 templates as well.  However, there are two template modifications in the Agile template that are very useful.  The first is to modify the Assigned To field to exclude some of the TFS service accounts and duplicate values.

<FIELD name="Assigned To" refname="System.AssignedTo" >
<ALLOWEDVALUES expanditems="true" filteritems="excludegroups">
<LISTITEM value="[Project]\Project Administrators"/>
<LISTITEM value="[Project]\Contributors"/>
<LISTITEM value="[Project]\Not Assigned"/>
</ALLOWEDVALUES>
<PROHIBITEDVALUES expanditems="true">
<LISTITEM value="Project Administrators"/>
<LISTITEM value="Contributors"/>
<LISTITEM value="Not Assigned"/>
</PROHIBITEDVALUES>
<DEFAULT from="value" value="Not Assigned"/>
<ALLOWEXISTINGVALUE/>
<HELPTEXT>..snip..</HELPTEXT>
</FIELD> 

The other two modifications are to create initial states in both the Task and Bug work item types.  This can be done by adding the states in the work item type editor, editing the workflow to add the states, and then republishing the work items back to the server.  The flow on a bug would be modified to Created > Active > Resolved > Closed and the Task flow would be modified to a flow of Created > Active > Closed.