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Compare Visual Studio to OnTime

Last post 04-03-2007, 4:56 PM by DynoEnviro. 3 replies.
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  •  03-26-2007, 11:36 AM 10883

    Compare Visual Studio to OnTime

    Currently my company is using an extremely old VB5-based bug tracking tool. Indifferent. We are also using Visual Studio 2005 with the VSS client.

    I want to switch to OnTime, but there is talk in our company to move to Team System. Knowing this information, where does OnTime fit in the solution as it applies to Team System (TS)? Doesn't TS include integrate bug tracking? Is there even a place in an organization that is using TS?

    I looked around your site expecting a FAQ on this topic, but alas nothing. Maybe I missed something. Thanks for explaining.

     



    Michael Adams
    Web Developer
    American Specialty Health, INC.


    www.healthyroads.com

  •  03-30-2007, 7:33 AM 10980 in reply to 10883

    Re: Compare Visual Studio to OnTime

    No one is up for the challenge? This message goes out to everyone using this forum. I want my company to use OnTime, but they are talking about Team System. Why should my company use OnTime when the developers are using Visual Studio 2005?

    Fellow developers, are you using Visual Studio 2005 and OnTime? If so why?

    Help me make a compelling argument.


     



    Michael Adams
    Web Developer
    American Specialty Health, INC.


    www.healthyroads.com

  •  03-30-2007, 8:42 AM 10989 in reply to 10980

    Re: Compare Visual Studio to OnTime

    Michael, I'll take a stab at it...Here are things to consider with Team System

    • Team system has a "Work Item" tracking feature that competes with OnTime.  In all fairness, Team System has a lot of unrelated features (like load and unit testing, source control management, etc.)
    • The work item tracking capabilities of team system pale in comparison to OnTime.  It's not easy to setup, customize or get things done at the same speed at which you can with OnTime.
    • Team System does not come with VS.NET 2005 or the MSDN Subscription.  With the release of Team System, Microsoft introduced new editions of MSDN which cost $3,000 more ($5,600 vs. $2,600) per user to add the Team System functionality.  So if your main use of Team System was for work item tracking, and you're comparing that to OnTime, you could save about $2,800 per user by choosing OnTime instead of adding Team System.  For 15 users, you'd save enough to buy a company BMW for everyone to share ;-)
    • Team System does not provide a web based solution and for all practical purposes is not the ideal tool for project managers
    • There are lots more reasons to choose OnTime - you probably already know many of them, which is why you want to go with OnTime.

    Hope that helps.  By the way, we have a lot of customers who use the Team Foundation Server's source control features for users (much cheaper at around $600/user) and use OnTime for project management.  That might be something else to consider.


    Hamid Shojaee
    Read the Ship Software OnTime Blog
    Axosoft, LLC
    Filed under: , ,
  •  04-03-2007, 4:56 PM 11057 in reply to 10980

    Re: Compare Visual Studio to OnTime

    We are using the VS Team System with TFS, sharepoint, and the works even though we are a small team. VSTS source code control is iron-clad, and sharepoint services are great for building repositories and very nice team/project/portal sites quickly. The problem I have with TS is the workflow. While the package ships with a couple of workflows and associated forms out of the box (Agile development model and Extreme development model I believe), you have to know how to work with XML extensively in order to modify the existing models or to create workflow models from scratch.

    The workflow and forms provisions are very configurable/customizable, but there is no GUI that I'm aware of to make it intuitive. This is the principal reason that I'm still using OnTime. If MS ever slaps a nice GUI on the product, I'll probably make the switch. Not that I don't like the OnTime product line; on the contrary, it's a great system, but we are trying to integrate our environment as much as possible. I believe I inquired of Axosoft when VS2K5 first came out whether or not they intended to integrate with the TS, and the answer was 'no' at the time. So, bottom line, if you have the resources available to manage your workflow/forms configurations, or you can use one the out-of-the-box workflows, VSTS provides a great, integrated, enterprise scale package for just about any environment.

    On the downside, I will fore-warn not to exclude cost in your consideration, because VSTS is a substantial investment. Total cost for 3 IDEs, and the TFS was about $17K, and there are several flavors of the IDE to choose from, each having its own set of 'extras' that may cause you to buy lateral upgrades if you want to employ them. For instance, we have 3 copies of the Developer Edition IDE. MS created a utility for synchronizing SQL databases and managing their source/version/etc and released a 180-day beta. We used it and found it to significantly increase efficiency for sync processes. However, when the final release of the utility came out, we found that MS had made it a part of the Database Professional Edition of the IDE, and now we are forced to drop another $2300 to get the lateral upgrade.

    Also on the downside, TFS setup and system and security configuration is not very intuitive, and is a bit difficult to master. Doumentation was sparse at the time we purchsed the system as well. If you have a faily open network policy, that makes it easier, but we were in the middle of a 'strap down,' which cause a few headaches in itself.

     



    Chris
    First rule of leadership...everything is your fault.- Hopper

     

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