Project not publishing start/finish date for custom TFS work items

Question

I've got a TFS 2012 project set up with custom work items, that include Start and Finish date read-only fields (Microsoft.VSTS.Scheduling.StartDate and FinishDate). When I publish one of those custom work items from within Office Project, it does not populate those fields the same way as when I publish a Task work item (builtin TFS work item).

I've looked at the transitions in the work items, and also the TFS project field mapping XML file but can't find anything that explains the difference in behaviour. What am I missing?

Answer 1

To publish Start Date and Finish Date you need to download TFS project field mapping XML change property "PublishOnly" to "false" and then upload XML back to TFS.

This is how it should look like:

<Mapping WorkItemTrackingFieldReferenceName="Microsoft.VSTS.Scheduling.StartDate" ProjectField="pjTaskStart" PublishOnly="false" />