Can TFS be used as a public bug reporting tool?

Question

We have developed a product which will be available in mass-market. People can buy it online, a license key is generated automatically, they can download it and install it, etc. Now what we need is a place where customers can report bugs.

We already have TFS set up and working and it would be nice if the customer bug reports would get there too. However I cannot find how to do this in TFS. The main problem that I see is user registration - each user that wants to use the system needs to be manually created by the administrator. There is no "click here to register" link in the TFS web portal, or even an option to submit a bug report anonymously.

Is it still possible to coerce TFS to function this way? Perhaps a third-party frontend to TFS? Or will I need to use a different system and start thinking about an automated sync or something?

Answer 1

No, TFS is not intended to be a public bug tracker. On-prem TFS uses Windows AD for authentication. VSTS uses Microsoft accounts or Organizational accounts (if backed by Azure AD).

Beyond that, there is no concept of restricting certain work items to certain users -- any user who has access to edit work items in a given area can edit all work items in that area.