There were only a few post on this and I felt like really important information was left out: What the defaults are How to create the filter string Here’s the code to create the subscription. Get the Collection public TfsTeamProjectCollection GetCollection(string collectionUrl) { try { //connect to the TFS collection using the active user TfsTeamProjectCollection tpc = new TfsTeamProjectCollection(new Uri(collectionUrl)); tpc.EnsureAuthenticated(); return tpc; } catch (Exception) { return null; } ......