[Team System] Getting Rid of Default Document Folders in the Quick Launch Bar

I just recently blogged about how to display document folders in the Quick Launch area of the TFS Sharepoint portal. Here's a follow-up to that one on how to remove the default folders which are created when you set up a new Team System project. It's all about modifying the Sharepoint template. You should only try this if you are creating a custom Team System Process Template.

1) Create a new test-project in Team System, don't bother to add any source control to it.

2) In Team Explorer, remove the Document folders and files you're not interested in. This will be reflected on the project portal. As is explained in detail at the MSDN site, you must also edit the Process Template XML files to reflect these changes to the template content. While at it, you may also delete any reports you don't want (or add for that matter), but again - modify the template XML files to reflect this. I'm pretty sure it will still work well, but you never know, things will probably be messed up if you don't. If you change the portal content, change the XML files (repeat as a mantra).

3) On the project portal, go to "Site Settings", "Go to Site Administration" and click "Save site as template". This will create an .stp file on the portal that you can download and put anywhere on your Team Foundation Server for now. Write down the name of the Sharepoint template because you need it in the following steps.

4) The rest about how to add the template to the server and so on is well described on the TFS site on MSDN. In short - Go to the server, add the template to the TFS by using the stsadm.exe tool and pointing at your .stp file. Then get back you your lovely Process Template files and refer to it (by name) in the <site> section of the WssTasks.xml file.

5) Now, upload the new Process Template to TFS, create a new project and see if it looks alright.

As I wrote earlier, to change the overall look and feel of the Sharepoint portal, you still need to use Frontpage, but that is something I will go into later.