Changes between Version 69 and Version 70 of TestCaseManagementPlugin


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Timestamp:
May 21, 2008, 8:09:46 PM (16 years ago)
Author:
edunne
Comment:

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  • TestCaseManagementPlugin

    v69 v70  
    3232Some of the common problems that any testcase management tool faces are:
    3333
    34 1. versioning of the test cases (taken care of by subversion)
    35 
    36 2. '''reporting (taken care of by trac custom ticket reports)'''
    37 
    38 3. generating specific test runs is done through the test management plugin
    39 
    40 So what is a test run?
    41 
    42 A test run is specific set of test cases for a particular milestone or version of the software under test for a particular tester.  Each tester owns a single instance of a test case in the form of a ticket.  This allows you to track the progress of individual testers as they complete their set of test cases.  This is really powerful because you can take full advantage of the custom reporting engine in TRAC to look for open tickets of type testcase that belong  to a particular tester, and also monitor the progress of a group of testers.  There was some confusion about this as it seemed like a single ticket would be "owned" by multiple testers.  TRAC's data model makes this impossible (also I think that assigning test tickets in that way would be really clunky).  Essentially what happens is the testcase is an xml document stored in subversion.  The testcasemanagementplugin creates a ticket with the test case details as the ticket description and assigns that ticket to a specific tester: one ticket per tester per testcase.
     341. assigning a group of tests to a testing resource(s)...'''a test run''' (this is what the plugin manages)
     35
     362. versioning of the test cases (taken care of by subversion...you mean testcases require maintenance?)
     37
     383. reporting on results and progress (trac reports...export to excel for pretty pictures)
     39
     40
     41[[BR]]
     42'''So what is a test run?'''
     43
     44-  a set of tests
     45
     46-  assigned to a specific tester
     47
     48-  for a particular product and version
     49
     50'''In more detail...'''
     51A test run is specific set of test cases for a particular milestone or version of the software under test for a particular tester. 
     52
     53Each tester owns a single '''instance of a test case in the form of a ticket'''.  This allows you to track the progress of individual testers as they complete their set of test cases.  As they complete a testing task they set the TRAC ticket to closed.   
     54
     55This is really powerful because you can take full advantage of the custom reporting engine in TRAC to look for open tickets of type testcase that belong  to a particular tester, and also monitor the progress of a group of testers.
     56
     57There was some confusion about this as it seemed like a single ticket would be "owned" by multiple testers.  TRAC's data model makes this impossible (also I think that assigning test tickets in that way would be really clunky). 
     58
     59Essentially what happens is the testcase is an xml document stored in subversion.  The testcasemanagementplugin creates a ticket with the test case details as the ticket description and assigns that ticket to a specific tester: one ticket per tester per testcase.
    4360
    4461The advantage of having a testcase management tool in trac is that it removes the need to have yet another system that manages testcases...with all the usual problems of maintaining user accounts, system upgrades, and licensing issues.  The other advantage is that it adds more transparency to the testing process as the tool and any testcases are right there for anyone to see.
    4562
    46 Testcases are stored in a very simple XML format.  And you can specify collection of test cases (for example a smoke test) by specifying which test cases belong to a test template.  This information is also specified in an xml file.
     63Testcases are stored in a '''very simple XML format'''. 
     64
     65'''Example...'''
     66Take the testcases that you've written a in a word doc or excel and put one test case into one xml document.  I've heard some feedback that potentially this ends up in a huge set of test cases.  That's only if you write test cases in the form : "Test case 1: click the submit button...end of test case".
     67
     68'''Brief Digression'''[[BR]]
     69My personal philosohpy is to encourage people to write workflow or task based driven testcases and have the tester use their brains to find issues.  Check out Exploratoy testing by James Bach at http://satisfice.com .  If they need to look at the UI in very high detail then the test case could simply be "compare the UI to the mockup and here's the link to the screen shot: http://(screen shot checked in to subversion)".  If there is no mock up, trying to describe a GUI using words is completely ridiculous.
     70
     71'''Grouping Test cases together...'''
     72You can specify collection of test cases (for example a smoke test) by specifying which test cases belong to a test template.  This information is also specified in an xml file.
    4773
    4874Note this plugin is designed to work with Subversion, although I don't use any specific subversion code.  Potentially this plugin could work with other TRAC supported configuration management systems.  I just haven't tried it.