TFS 2013 - Link Work Items via Spreadsheet

Question

I have an Excel worksheet with hundreds of TFS 2013 Work Item IDs populating both Column A and Column B. For illustrative purposes, let's just say I have the following:

Row 1 to Row 100 of Column A: Populated with the Work Item IDs of 100 Bug Work Items

Row 1 - Row 100 of Column B populated with the Work Item IDs of 100 Task Work Items.

What I'd like to do is have an automated process, e.g. a script that iterates through the hundred rows of my Excel spreadsheet and link the work item IDs in Column A with the corresponding work item IDs in Column B on the same row, e.g. link the work items listed in A1 to that of B1, A2 to B2, A3 to B3, etc.

I can for instance see a For loop achieving such a requirement.

Answer 1

If you save the spreadsheet as a .csv file and have two columns with headings Parent and Child then using this excellent blog post as inspiration:

http://www.colinsalmcorner.com/post/bulk-migrate-work-item-comments-links-and-attachments

Try this:

$tpcUrl = "http://myserver:8080/tfs/MyCollection"
$csvFile = ".\map.csv" #format: Parent, Child

[Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName('Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Common')
[Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName('Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Client')
[Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName('Microsoft.TeamFoundation.WorkItemTracking.Client')

$tpc = [Microsoft.TeamFoundation.Client.TfsTeamProjectCollectionFactory]::GetTeamProjectCollection($tpcUrl)
$wis = $tpc.GetService([Microsoft.TeamFoundation.WorkItemTracking.Client.WorkItemStore])

$list = Import-Csv $csvFile

foreach($map in $list) 
{
   $childWIT = $wis.GetWorkItem($map.Child)

   Write-Host "Creating Link from Parent:$($map.Parent) to Child:$($map.Child)" -ForegroundColor Green

   $hierarchyLink = $wis.WorkItemLinkTypes[[Microsoft.TeamFoundation.WorkItemTracking.Client.CoreLinkTypeReferenceNames]::Hierarchy]
   $link = new-object Microsoft.TeamFoundation.WorkItemTracking.Client.WorkItemLink($hierarchyLink.ReverseEnd, $map.Parent)    
   $childWIT.WorkItemLinks.Add($link)
   try 
   {
      $childWIT.Save();
      Write-Host "Link created" -ForegroundColor DarkGreen
   }
   catch 
   {
      Write-Error "Could not save work item $map.Child"
      Write-Error $_
   }
}

Write-Host
Write-Host "Linking complete"