TFS WebParts in a 64bit SharePoint environment
In my post on using TFS WebParts in Sharepoint I provided a proof of concept set of source to allow work items to be viewed and edited within 32bit SharePoint 2007. However I hit a problem that our live SharePoint is running 64bit and the TFS API is only available for 32bit, so the WebParts could not be loaded.
To get round this problem I have built a version of the WebParts that move all the 32bit TFS API calls into a separate web service. This allows the web service to be hosted on a 32bit box whilst the WebParts are still run within the 64bit SharePoint environment.
I have used a simple design model in that I just move all the TFS based methods in my previous example to the WebService and passed all the URLs, authentication details and other parameter each time a WebMethod is called. It does the job to show how the system can work, but there are many other options depending on how you want to manage the user IDs the SharePoint users authenticate to TFS as, see my previous posts for a longer discussion of the authentication issues.
In addition to the WebPart setting detailed in the previous post, there is one additional parameter, this is the web service URL e.g.
This should point to wherever you have installed the web service (using standard means of publishing web sites). The web service does not have to be on the TFS server, as this web service only acts as a pass through. Also so there is no need to edit any details in the web service's web.config.