I've tried to find a solution for this for hours now, and I'm getting the same results in the end, asking me to install a lot of Azure and other stuff, plus running some example project .sln that I can't open with my 2012 version of Visual Studio. So, I'm pretty much stuck, and have some pretty straight forward questions regarding this: Does TFS 2012 include the Odata service in any way, so that I don't have to install it? If not, how can I install a NATIVE 2012 version of the Odata service for TFS 2012? Is it possible that I'm aiming for the wrong target here? I'm looking for a solution to the following: I have a TFS 2012 Server that I need to be able to create Work Items on programatically, based on data from our Help Desk system. Then I need to query these Work Items for changed status since its creation, and update the Help Desk Database. Am I better off using the "regular" TFS API? I was kinda thinking that the Odata way was more "future proof", but I'm not sure...