Release notes

Version 4.3

Added support for Visual Studio 2026.
Extended the list of users permitted to access reports.

Version 4.2

Supported Azure DevOps 2020/2022.
Review Assistant is now compatible with Visual Studio 2022. Supported editions are: Community, Professional, Enterprise, Team Explorer.

Version 4.1

Review Assistant now supports Visual Studio 2019

Supported VS 2019 Preview 4.
Supported TFS 2019 and DevOps 2019.

Iterative review for pre-commit

An iterative review can be currently used for shelvesets. You can easily view file versions from different shelvesets in the same review, as well as write comments the same way as in a simple review.

Two modes of opening Work Item

We supported two modes of opening a work item the same way as in Visual Studio:

Visual Studio compatible view - for Visual Studio 2017 and lower.
Default web browser - for Visual Studio 2017 and Visual Studio 2019.

Auto-detection of renamed/moved files

In Code Review Board, there is no need to select an added file with a new name and a deleted file with an old name.
A renamed file is displayed as a single one with a new and an old names in square brackets as in Visual Studio.
Tracking renamed files is supported for all VCS including shelvesets in TFS.

“Use single diff-tool window for comparison” option in a new tab Options

With this option, you can disable the behavior of comparison being opened “in a single window”. Disabling this option will be useful for those who want to view changes made to multiple files in a review simultaneously.

Other improvements

The Status column is added to the Reviews Status report.
Minor UI improvements in the Reports tab of Review Assistant.
Displaying of an active user on the Users tab and an active project in Projects is significantly improved.
Possibility of adding comments without linking them to a revision for Perforce repositories.
Minor UI improvements in Code Review Board.

Note

Upgrading to this version requires reinstalling both the server and the clients.

Version 4.0

New Review Assistant with greatly improved review workflow

The improved process of performing code review.
Changed the statuses of reviews, added categories for comments to code and completely reworked email notifications.

New statuses for review

The new Response Required status for a review. This status is for those cases when a reviewer cannot finish a review, because there are questions that the author of the code should answer before the review can be continued.
The Rejected status has been changed to Rework Needed, which describes the state of the code more precisely.

Automatic Review Status

Now, a reviewer simply clicks Complete Review, and the status of the review is determined automatically based on the type of comments specified.

Four categories of review comments

Now, in addition to a simple comment, you can add:

Question – if you have such a comment, the review will get the status Response Required.
Should Fix – indicates a deficiency in the code that is not critical.
Must Fix – indicates an error in the code. Previously, such comments were marked with the Defect flag.

View changes in a single editor

Previously, when viewing changes to files, a separate document opened for each file. As a result, a reviewer had to close a lot of documents at the end of the review. Now, a single diff-tool window opens, which alternately displays changes to different files.

New e-mail notifications

New appearance of the letter, improved readability, and the missing information added. Now, all the notifications on one review are combined into message chains.

Improved Code Review Board

Branches of code included in the review for Git & Mercurial are displayed on the board.
A reviewer now has the ability to view revisions included in a review.
Unnecessary dialogs with warnings were removed.
Improved work with comments and replies.

Other improvements

Improved export of revisions to XLS files.
Improved import of TFS users and projects.
Improved verification of incompatibility between client and server versions.
MS SQL 2017 supported.
The database has been optimized, the total volume is reduced by 2 times.

Note

Upgrading to this version requires reinstalling both the server and the clients.

Version 3.6

Visual Studio 2017 RC4 support

Review Assistant v3.6 is now compatible with Visual Studio 2017 RC4.

Project members can now export a review

In the previous versions of Review Assistant, only a project owner could export a review. In response to multiple requests from our users, we’ve made this feature available for any member of a project.

Visual Studio authentication for TFS connections supported

Now, you don’t need to additionally enter credentials in Review Assistant. In most cases, this allows you to connect without the prompt at all, and when using Visual Studio Online, there is no need to enable Alternate authentication credentials.

Improved Configuration Wizard

The Configuration Wizard contains a link to the documentation topic explaining in details the steps of setting up the SQL Server connection.

Forward slash symbols in a path of a Perforce workspace supported

The Perforce path syntax is supported in Review Assistant.

Version 3.5

Review Assistant moved to SQL Server

Since this release Review Assistant server uses Microsoft SQL Server as a database.
All editions of Microsoft SQL Server starting from SQL Server 2008 are supported.
Performance for large databases improved.

Other improvements

In a simple review workflow, reviewers can close a review after code is accepted.
The “search-as-you-type” suggestion appears when adding users to a project.
On the Code Review Board, the projects in the drop-down list are now sorted alphabetically.
Working with a long list of comments in a review became faster.
LocalDB installed with Visual Studio 2015 is supported.
CREATE TABLE permission check is added.
Reviews Authored column is added to Authors Statistics report.

Note

Upgrading to this version requires reinstalling both the server and the clients.

Version 3.2

More flexible email notifications

Individual settings of email notifications for each event type.
Every member of a project can now receive email notifications about all events in reviews.

Project members can join reviews now

When looking through the list of open project reviews or getting a message about a new review, a user can join it as a Reviewer.
To join an existing review, open it in the Code Review Board window and click Join Review.

New role in a review - Watcher

Watchers receive all review notifications as if they were review participants.
Watchers can join a review any time if they want to add comments to code.

Create reviews without specifying reviewers

This feature was added for agile teams. It allows creating “hanging” reviews, which any team member can pick up.

Code author can now create a review without adding specific reviewers.
All project members receive an email notification about a new review.
Reviews with no reviewers appear under My Reviews and To Review filters for every project member.
Any project member can join a review.

Other improvements

Review editor usability improved.
Project settings improved to avoid ambiguity.
The warning on Accept Changes is more straightforward now.

Version 3.0

Get code review process up and running in two minutes with TFS

Quick import of TFS projects together with users.
A user can choose the projects to import.
Both Visual Studio Online and Team Foundation Server are supported.
Selective import of users without projects is now possible.

Multiple authors per review

Several authors may be simultaneously added to one review.
When revisions are added to a review, all related authors are added automatically.
The list of authors can be edited manually.
Comments in a review are automatically addressed to the author of a file revision.
A user responsible for defect fixing can be changed manually.

Initial review

The initial review option allows to review code of a project in its current state.
Files, not revisions, are added to a review. The latest revision of the file is retrieved from the repository.
Any number of files can be added in a review from the repository.
Based on comments, the latest revisions of files can be added to a review and several review iterations can be implemented.

Flexible editing of a range of revisions in a review

Now, you can edit the entire range of revisions added to a review.

Better work with the file list in a review

It is now possible to hide read files. This is especially useful when a large list of files is reviewed.
You can compare revisions for renamed files.
Additional options in the pop-up menu of files.
- The Open Containing Folder command allows to quickly display a file in Windows Explorer.
- The Copy Full Path command allows to copy to the clipboard the full path to a file.

Working with binary files

A user can work with binary files in a review.
A binary file opens in the associated editor.
The Add File Comment command is supported for binary files.

Other improvements

Defect markers appear red in the Code Editor.
E-mail notifications are sent to all participants of a review, regardless of their role.
For the strict review workflow, participants of a review are restricted in rights to close and delete other users’ comments.
An integrated administrator account is not considered a licensed user if it is not involved in projects.
Branch names are now displayed in the Add Revisions dialog box for Git. Also, a splitter was added to the dialog box.
Creating accounts without a password is no longer allowed.

Version 2.8

The release of Review Assistant 2.8 provides the following functionality:

Support for Microsoft Visual Studio 2015 — a rich, integrated development environment for creating applications for Windows, Android, and iOS, as well as web applications and cloud services.
Support for Microsoft Visual Studio Community Editions 2013-2015 — a free, fully-featured, and extensible IDE.
Support for Team Foundation Server 2015 — the newest version of TFS, the collaboration platform at the core of Microsoft’s application life-cycle management (ALM) solution.

Version 2.7

Printed code review reports

For companies that conduct external compliance review such as PA-DSS.

The Review Assistant Reports window contains the new Code Review Details report type.
The report contains all reviews that were conducted for the specified time period.
The report is automatically divided into pages for printing.
You can save the report in the PDF and many other formats.
The Code Review Board shortcut menu contains a command for individual review export.

Review comments in Visual Studio’s built-in diff tool

Review Assistant provides full integration with the built-in Visual Studio diff tool. You do not need to have Code Compare installed to see review comments.

The ‘Resume Review’ action for reviewer

A reviewer may renew the code review process independently of other review participants. This may be useful when a reviewer finished the review process and after some time would like to change their opinion.

Smarter revision picking algorithm for a comparison

This algorithm will be beneficial for users who conduct iterative code review with help of Git or Mercurial. The new algorithm selects a file revision more accurate while reviewing changes. In many cases, this allows you to separate changes of other authors that could get into the file while code merge or as a result of significant intervals between iterations of one review.

Other Improvements

Group operations with the file list in a review.
Opening files for comparison is optimized.
Operations with TFS are now faster.
‘Pre-commit code review’ check-in policy for TFS project behaviour is improved.
A shortcut menu for a file is reordered to hide rarely used commands.
Unmodified files are now hidden for Mercurial’s merge-commits.

Version 2.6

Code Coverage Report

With the new report, you can:

See, what revisions in repository were sent to review, and what were not.
Detect whether code was accepted, rejected, or remains uncompleted.
Navigate to the review that was created for a particular revision.
Group data by authors, review statuses and by other columns.
Filter data to exclude minor revisions from report.

Mark revision as reviewed

When creating a review and adding revisions to it, author can easily detect what revisions in repository were not reviewed.

Report customization

Select columns you want to include to report.
Tune up data grouping.

Adding a review comment for the entire file

The option to comment not only a certain code line, but to add review comment to the entire file.

Review links in reports

Now, Review Status and Code Coverage reports include clickable links referring to corresponding reviews.

Visual Studio “14” CTP support

The new version of Review Assistant is compatible with the bleeding edge version of Visual Studio environment.

Other Changes

Improved performance when working with Review Assistant integrated into Git source control system.
More explicit behavior when working with the files, that were deleted during development.

Version 2.5

Faster Review Server

We have boosted the Review Assistant Server up to 50%.

Secure Connections

SSL connections are supported now.

Work without Visual Studio

You can install the Review Assistant (client) on the PC without Visual Studio. The product installation will download and install the Visual Studio Integrated Shell.

Simultaneous work with multiple projects gets more convenient

Now, a user can simultaneously see all accessible reviews from multiple projects.
Ability to switch a project from Code Review Board.

Pre-Commit Code Review Policy for TFS

Review Assistant client now includes a custom check-in policy for TFS. It is used to control that all changes pass code review before the check-in into a version control system.

Options for email notifications

A user profile now includes the ‘Email notification level’ setting.

Large code reviews are better now

For reviews with 300+ comments, Review Assistant client performance is significantly improved.
A list of review files is hierarchical now.

Other Improvements

While executing the Replace Recent Revisions command, in the select revisions dialog, the files highlighting recovers.
While creating a review based on a TFS shelveset, the shelveset name is used as a review title (if there are no comments).
The product registration is available via the client UI.
The installation creates a shortcut to run the client.
Now you can add a user from the Active Directory by double-clicking.

Version 2.1

Perforce source control system integration

Now, companies that use Perforce can benefit from using Review Assistant.

Add change lists to a review from the GUI client.
View author’s changes, that were made in a code comparison tool.
Add comments to a specific revision of a file.
Implement iterative review.

Adding comments to blocks of code

Review Assistant allows to add comments to a block of code. You can select either a word or a several code lines to add a comment. A block of code with a comment is highlighted with the orange border for more convenience.

Improvements related to comments in the code editor

Graphic markers of comments are added instead of the text lines.
The color of the marker defines a status of a comment.
A pop-up window with the information about a comment appears while clicking the marker.
The pop-up window contains commands that allow to change comments statuses.

Command line interface

We stick to the tradition of giving our users the priority of choosing new features. Our close interaction results in the improvements that are really required. One of the most voted-for features is the support of continuous integration platforms.

Command line client features:

Getting the information about users, projects and reviews.
Filtering the reviews list.
Retrieving data in the XML format.

Version 2.0

New Code Review Board

New UI is more in line with the Visual Studio 2012 style.
Role-specific review statuses are shown in the reviews list.
New filter for recently closed reviews added.

Email notifications

Email notifications about events occurring when the review is in progress.
Review links for browser-like navigation added. User can now open Visual Studio right from the email client.

Code Review Reports

Reviewer Statistics – to assess reviewers’ activity.
Author Statistics – allows to evaluate roughly the quality of code involved in a review process.
Users Status – for evaluating current review workload per developer.
Reviews Status – helps to find “stale” reviews.

Improved Commenting on Code

Comments are linked to a file revision.
Multiple-line comments are fully displayed.
The number of replies is now visible in the comment header.
The comment status is displayed as a bright text label.

Improved Code Review Process

Reviewers can track their progress now.
Automatic display of latest unread changes in the file list.
Simple review workflow is improved to avoid unwanted review auto-closing.

Multiple Repositories in One Review Allowed

Adding code from more than one repository into a single review.
SVN Externals, Git sub-modules, and Mercurial sub-repositories are supported.

Closer Integration with TFS

Related work items are displayed in Code Review Board when user adds change sets.
Review work item’s code.
Review change sets from the Source Control History window.

Visual Studio 2013 Support

Implemented the integration of Review Assistant with Visual Studio 2013.

Version 1.2

Adding users from Active Directory is supported.
Adding of bulk project members is supported.
Refresh speed is increased.
Support Visual Studio 2012 diff tool.
Adding comments in comparisons opened from TortoiseSvn/Get/Hg and TFS is supported.
Reply editing is supported.
Speed of Active Directory operations is increased.
The speed of adding SVN revisions to an existing review is significantly increased.
Adding multiple revisions, when branch or author is specified, is allowed.
Trusted domain authentication is supported.
Revision adding is not allowed for reviewers.
Keyboard mnemonics on menu items are added.
Visual Studio Integrated Shell is supported.

Version 1.1

Pre-commit in TFS using shelvesets is supported.
Git repositories are supported.
Simple workflow is added.
“Collapse all” button on the Code Review Board toolbar is added.
Code snap of comments is enhanced.
TFS repository response time is decreased.
Displaying of comment author’s initials is added.
Indication of reviewers’ work completion is added.
Minor GUI enhancements are introduced.

Version 1.0

Search reviews and comments by user and revision is supported.
Showing initials of creator in comments is added.
Visual Studio themes are supported.
Visual Studio 2012 themes are supported.
Nested folders in a repository are supported.
The option to open comparisons via context menu of comment is added.
Third-party comparison tools are supported.
Third-party diff tools are supported.
Options to set SVN/Hg binary paths are added.
Review filtering is enhanced.