Team System Web Access 2008 SP1 CTP and Work Item Web Access 2008 CTP are now available

Team System Web Access 2008 SP1 CTP (Community Technology Preview) and Work Item Web Access 2008 CTP are now available for download. Even though it's only CTP version at the moment, don't let it discourage from using it, because it seems to be working very well. By the way, you still have to have Team Explorer 2008 installed to use TWSA and/or WIWA, which is not a big deal since it's free and most of us already have it installed anyway. For those who don't have Team Explorer 2008 installed, it can be downloaded for free from http://www.microsoft.com/Downloads/details.aspx?familyid=0ED12659-3D41-4420-BBB0-A46E51BFCA86&displaylang=en.

Team System Web Access 2008 SP1 has some really great features:

  • Single instance with multiple languages (9 languages are available: ENU, CHS, CHT, DEU, ESN, FRA, ITA, JPN, KOR)
  • Support for specifying field values in the URL for creating new work items (works in both TSWA and WIWA)
  • Share ad-hoc work item queries
  • Shelveset viewer
  • Improved search support

Team System Work Item Web Access 2008 CTP allows users to use some work item tracking feature without having TFS client access license (CAL.) A user without TFS CAL can use WIWA to:

  • Create new work items
  • Edit the work item you have created
  • See the list of work items you have created

However, user cannot:

  • See work items created by others
  • List, view, edit or run work item queries
  • Add, edit or remove work item links (except attachments and hyperlinks)
  • Access documents stored on the project portal
  • Access project reports
  • Access source control
  • Access team build

Specs for WIWA can be found at http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/teamsystem/bb936702.aspx