One changeset associated with multiple work items, yet only one to be merged for current release

Question

I am new to TFS. For one changeset I associated it with multiple work items because the changes were of the same kind for them. Now I want to merge the change for one work item but not for the others in the changeset as only this one is for current release.

Any idea how should I proceed with this scenario?

Answer 1

You have a complicated situation, I have two possible solutions for you

If the same change-set applies to all of the associated work items (WI) then no matter which one of your work item need to be released the whole change-set will be merged. so perhaps you can associate the merge with the WI you are going to release and merge. and when it come to other WI's you can simply mark them released stating the change-set you've previously merged.

If your current change-set have multiple changes for different WI's then perhaps best solution is to rollback the change-set and check-in respectively for each WI you have. by doing this you'll have separate change-set representing each of your WI, then you can easily proceed with the merge for the desired WI.

Answer 2

We are currently at DEV -> UAT stage. After some discussion, the following have been done:

1. Merge the change, but only check in the item for current relase in UAT and undo the change for others currently. This will leave the changeset partially merged and will require further merges when it comes to subsequent releases.

2. In DEV, make another invisible change to the workitem and check in the changeset --> merge it in UAT. Reason for this is that later for UAT -> PROD, we can exclude the problematic changeset temperarily and use the new one as a representative to note the changes (so that there's some hint to follow for the changes made). Only at the end (when promote the last WI associated to this changeset to UAT/PROD) we will pomote this trouble-making changeset fully.

Lesson learned: however simple and similar the changes are for different WIs (esp. those for different releases), make isolated check-ins. It may take a few minutes more at the development phase, but will definitely save a lot of trouble at later phases. There is no perfect solutions for such problems. Roll-back is too costly when a lot of subsequent changes have been made.