How to: Receive Build Notification E-Mail

  • Article

By using Visual Studio 2005 Team Foundation Server, you can receive e-mail messages based on alerts which are triggered by build events. For more information, see How to: Add or Edit Alerts. The types of build events that you can be notified of include the following:

  • Build Completed

  • Build Quality Changed

The e-mail messages contain a link to a Web page that displays the build details. The link corresponds to the build number affiliated with the notification alert. You can view the page over the Internet remotely. For more information, see Overview of the Build Details Page. Additionally, the e-mail messages contain the following information:

Data type Sample

Team project

AdventureWorks

Details (only applies to quality event notification)

BuildQuality changed from Unexamined to Under Investigation

Build type

Nightly

Build originated by

Username

Build machine

Machinename

Build started on

06/20/2005 2:00:00 AM

Build completed on

06/20/2005 2:22:10 AM

Build quality

Under Investigation

Work items opened

Bug 12345 (Active/Unassigned)

Build log

\\Builds\v1drops\dailybuilds\20050626.00\logfiles\buildlog.txt

Custom task events

\\Builds\v1drops\dailybuilds\20050626.00\logfiles\customtasks.xml

You can create alerts that send e-mail messages to you or others based on when events that you specify occur. Messages for alerts arrive in your default e-mail program and can be opened by clicking the link in the alert. For more information, see How to: Add or Edit Alerts.

Required Permissions

To perform this procedure, you must have the Team Foundation Server View project-level information permission set to Allow. For more information, see Team Foundation Server Permissions.

To enable build notification alerts

  1. With the applicable team project node selected in Team Explorer, on the Team menu, click Project Alerts.

  2. Select the type of notification you want to receive, either A build completes alert or A build quality changes alert.

  3. In the Send to box for each alert, add the e-mail addresses of the team members you want to receive the alert. You can use a distribution list to simplify the process of specifying recipients.

  4. In the Format box for each alert, select HTML for the type of e-mail message to be sent.

  5. Click OK to enable notifications for the specified build alert.

See Also

Concepts

Overview of Team Foundation Build

Other Resources

Understanding the Team Foundation Build Browser