IT Services Firm Helps Customers Improve Software Testing and Team Collaboration

Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Customer Solution Case Study

Overview “One of our major customers lacked the right tools to Country or Region: France Industry: IT services automate its testing processes. With Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate, the company can run automated UI tests … Customer Profile Located in France, Microsoft Gold that help find and correct software bugs.” Certified Partner Access IT specializes in Etienne Margraff, Consultant, Access IT software development and technology training for enterprises across Europe. Access IT, a software provider and technology trainer based in The company has about 50 employees. France, helps more than 300 European customers deploy and Business Situation learn about Microsoft products and technologies. Recently, the Access IT needed to address customer demands for new testing tools, improved company wanted to address growing customer needs for collaboration, and better interoperability. improved software testing functionality, better collaboration It also wanted to create products based on new technologies. tools, and increased development language interoperability. Access IT also sought to create rich applications using Solution Access IT deployed beta versions of technologies such as Microsoft Silverlight. The company Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate implemented Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate and and Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010. Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010 internally and for several of its customers. Access IT can now help its Benefits  Improves code quality and reduces customers improve code quality, increase collaboration among testing time disparate teams, and simplify heterogeneous development. With  Improves collaboration and interoperability the new tools, Access IT has already created an innovative  Encourages creativity collaboration product and expects to gain new business.  Creates new business opportunities

Situation more easily integrate that environment with Access IT, a Microsoft Gold Certified Visual Studio. Other customers create Partner, is an IT services and training products using Java and other company headquartered in Lille, France. programming languages, but also wanted The company’s 50 consultants and trainers, to develop with the .NET Framework and who work in offices in Paris and Lille, offer use one set of tools for project visibility in technical expertise, project development, multiple environments. and software solution delivery. Access IT assists more than 300 companies in Additionally, Access IT wanted to find a learning and deploying Microsoft software. solution that it could use to develop creative applications based on the Increasingly, many of the company’s Microsoft Silverlight browser plug-in, customers had been seeking new software Windows Presentation Foundation, and the tracking and testing capabilities in their Microsoft Surface multi-touch computer. development environments, which are “We were looking to grow our business based on the Microsoft Visual Studio with these new technologies, and we development system and the Microsoft wanted to make sure Visual Studio and .NET Framework. “A lot of our customers, the .NET Framework would work easily with especially larger companies, were using them,” states Margraff. older testing technologies that did not integrate well with Visual Studio,” says Solution Pascal Laforest, Business Manager, Access When Access IT began exploring new IT. “They also needed better tools to help development software in early 2009, it was manage the overall software testing most interested in finding the right process.” Microsoft products to meet its needs. “All of our work is based on Microsoft software, Other Access IT customers have and our customers primarily use Visual geographically separate development and Studio and the .NET Framework,” says testing teams, and they sought better Margraff. collaboration tools for those teams. “One of our biggest customers has three Almost immediately, the company decided development teams in different offices, and to implement beta versions of Microsoft it wanted to help those employees Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate and Microsoft communicate more easily with each other,” Visual Studio Team Foundation Server says Etienne Margraff, Consultant, Access 2010. “These products feature new testing IT. functionality, architectural tools, and collaboration capabilities, all of which Access IT customers were also looking for would address our customers’ better interoperability between Visual requirements,” Laforest states. Studio and other software. For example, some of the company’s customers do For example, Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate development work in Microsoft Office users can create coded UI tests, which are SharePoint Server 2007 and wanted to automated tests that make sure the user “IntelliTrace in Visual interface is operating correctly following Ultimate and Visual Studio Team changes in the code. “That is something we Foundation Server 2010, both internally Studio 2010 Ultimate is a could not do previously,” Laforest says. and for several of its larger customers. great debugging tool Access IT was also interested in IntelliTrace, a debugging tool that can help isolate the Benefits that improves a team’s specific point of failure within an With the Microsoft solution, Access IT application’s history. In addition, the customers have better tools for tracking ability to reproduce company knew that its customers could and testing their applications. Customers bugs. That will help take advantage of new architectural tools in also have improved capabilities for Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate. For example, collaboration and for developing in developers save time in Architecture Explorer provides the ability to different environments. In addition, Access their day-to-day work.” display software projects graphically, while IT can be more creative in product design developers can use the Layer Diagram and has the opportunity to grow its Pascal Laforest, Business Manager, Access IT feature to view and model application business. dependencies and design applications visually. Improves Code Quality and Reduces Testing Time Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010 New testing functionality gives Access IT offers new hierarchical work item linking and its customers the tools required to capabilities, so developers can increase the maintain healthier software code. For richness of their work item links. And with instance, they can perform functional gated check-in, developers can validate testing for the first time. “One of our major code check-ins on a separate build customers lacked the right tools to machine before that code is committed to automate its testing processes,” says the team’s shared source control Margraff. “With Visual Studio 2010 repository. Ultimate, the company can run automated UI tests and a range of other automated Visual Studio 2010 also contains integrated tests that help find and correct software Teamprise technology, which offers bugs.” increased support for developers working in heterogeneous development Gated check-in also helps stop broken environments. source code from being submitted. “With the gated check-in feature in Visual Studio In addition, Access IT wanted to implement Team Foundation Server 2010, we can Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate because of its guarantee that our source code will match fully integrated support for Silverlight and expected quality,” Margraff says. In Windows Presentation Foundation addition, IntelliTrace will help reduce application development, including a drag- testing time for Access IT customers. and-drop design surface for easy “IntelliTrace in Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate development. is a great debugging tool that improves a team’s ability to reproduce bugs,” Laforest In late 2009, Access IT began implementing says. “That will help developers save time in beta versions of Visual Studio 2010 their day-to-day work.” “With the integrated together in Visual Studio Team Foundation Improves Collaboration Server 2010.” Windows Presentation Because Visual Studio Team Foundation Foundation design Server 2010 integrates testing and Team Foundation Server also contains development tools and processes, it can dashboards for Microsoft SharePoint Server features in Visual Studio help dispersed development teams 2010 and Office SharePoint Server 2007, improve collaboration. For example, the giving developers new ways to analyze and 2010 Ultimate, we were Access IT customer with three regionally track the progress of a project. “Our able to create an exciting distributed teams now has more powerful customers want one place where they can project collaboration capabilities. “With see everything that’s happening with any new multi-touch Visual Studio Team Foundation Server development project,” says Margraff. application that reflects 2010, every part of the application lifecycle “Visual Studio Team Foundation Server management process is in one centralized 2010 gives them that functionality.” how developers want to location,” says Margraff. “Because the be able to work.” testing environment is integrated into the Encourages Creativity in Application developer environment, a developer can Design Etienne Margraff, Consultant, Access IT easily and quickly correct a bug and send Internally, Access IT has used Windows the bug to the tester, who can validate it.” Presentation Foundation in the Microsoft .NET Framework 4, the integrated Geographically dispersed developers can Windows Presentation Foundation designer also use Architecture Explorer and the in Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate, and ability to generate layer diagrams to hierarchical work items in Visual Studio collaborate on projects. “Because we can Team Foundation Server 2010 to develop a generate diagrams and deeply explore new customer application called source code in Architecture Explorer, new TeamTable. Using this application, team members can easily understand how development teams can collaborate on a an application is built,” Margraff says. “It is Microsoft Surface table. Margraff says, easier for team members to clearly see the “With the integrated Windows Presentation relationships between different project Foundation design features in Visual Studio elements and layers.” 2010 Ultimate, we were able to create an exciting new multi-touch application that Increases Interoperability reflects how developers want to be able to Better interoperability between the work.” Microsoft Visual Basic and Visual C# languages and other dynamic languages Creates New Business Opportunities will help Access IT customers develop with With the ability to be more creative in multiple technologies. “The Microsoft application development, Access IT expects solution makes it possible for customers to to create new business. “Because we can work seamlessly with other technologies,” now use the integrated Windows says Margraff. “Companies who want to Presentation Foundation designer and develop solutions in both Java and the .NET other features in Visual Studio 2010 Framework can work on those projects Ultimate, we can generate business and For More Information take on projects that we were not capable Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 For more information about Microsoft of doing before,” Margraff says. Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 is an products and services, call the Microsoft integrated development system that helps Sales Information Center at (800) 426- Similarly, the improved interoperability with simplify the entire development process 9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft non-Microsoft development environments from design to deployment. Unleash your Canada Information Centre at (877) 568- through Teamprise technology in Visual creativity with powerful prototyping, 2495. Customers in the United States and Studio 2010 means that Access IT can meet modeling, and design tools that help you Canada who are deaf or hard-of-hearing more of its customers’ needs. “More and bring your vision to life. Work within a can reach Microsoft text telephone more of our customers use Team personalized environment that helps (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234. Foundation Server to build both Java accelerate the coding process and supports Outside the 50 United States and and .NET-based applications,” says the use of your existing skills, and target a Canada, please contact your local Margraff. “We expect to succeed in growing number of platforms, including Microsoft subsidiary. To access reaching out to these customers to show Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 and information using the World Wide Web, them how their existing environments can cloud services. Also, work more efficiently go to: be improved with the use of Visual Studio thanks to integrated testing and debugging www.microsoft.com 2010 Ultimate and Visual Studio Team tools that you can use to find and fix bugs Foundation Server 2010.” quickly and easily to help ensure high- For more information about Access IT quality solutions. products and services, call 33 (0)320 619 500 or visit the Web site at: For more information about Visual Studio www.access-it.net 2010, go to: www.msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio

Software and Services  Microsoft Server Product Portfolio  Microsoft Visual Studio − Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 − Microsoft Visual Studio 2010  Technologies Ultimate − IntelliTrace − Microsoft Visual Studio Team − Microsoft .NET Framework 4 Foundation Server 2010 − Microsoft Silverlight  Microsoft Office − Windows Presentation Foundation − Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. Document published April 2010