Query Blocks in TeamSpec

Thursday, June 6, 2013 

We receive a lot of feature requests for TeamSpec, and hands down the biggest request over the past few years is what we call “Query Blocks”. Query Blocks allow you to import entire Team Foundation Server (TFS) Queries into your Microsoft Word document. As the query results change TeamSpec will keep your document in sync by detecting these changes and updating or removing work items as necessary.

You’ll find the Query Blocks panel in the right-hand pane within TeamSpec. Double clicking on a query will populate the Results Pane.

Switching to the Design tab allows you to assign a TeamSpec skin to each level in the work item hierarchy returned by the query. The hierarchy can be many levels deep and supports Requirements with multiple levels of children.

After assigning your skins the Query Block can be inserted by clicking on the Blue “Insert Query Block Button”. All the results for your query are inserted into Word and available for editing in TeamSpec.

We have created a short video with a walk though of Query Blocks. Check it out!

5 minutes, 12 seconds

Query Blocks with TeamSpec

A query block is a section of your Microsoft Word document that is linked to a query in Team Foundation Server. Using a query block you can keep the content of your document up-to-date with the latest results of your query. If work items are added or removed from the query, simply refresh the query block to see the latest results.

Additionally, if you’re interested in how to create your own TeamSpec skins using numbering, styles, and tables check out this blog post.

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Tags: TFS , Query , Work Items

Categories: TeamSpec, TFS

Location: Blogs TeamSolutions Blog