August 2007 Rosario CTP: Test Case Management

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Test Case Manager is a new feature in the Microsoft® Visual Studio® Team System code name “Rosario” August 2007 CTP. TCM allows you to do some exciting new things. One of these is creating a Test Case with test steps. These steps let the test author tell the manual tester how to perform the test. Below is a basic walk through of adding steps and parameters to a Test Case. I also included a few questions for you at the end. They will help us know what you think about TCM. Plus it’s exciting to get feedback from customers that are using our product.

Open Test Case Manager:

1. Connect to your Team Foundation Server

2. Click on your project in the Team Explorer

3. On the main VS Menu bar click on Test

4. Go to the bottom of the drop down box to Windows

5. Then click on Test Case Manager

 

Create a new Test Case:

1. Click on the Add New Test Case button on the Test Case Manager tool bar

Add steps to the Test Case:

1. Click on the Steps tab

2. Click <click here to add a step> in the Title column

3. Type in what the tester needs to do for the step

4. In the Expected column type the expected results

 

 

You can also add two different types of parameters to a test step. Both types of parameters can be created in either the “Title” or “Expected” columns of the test step.

Data Bound parameters – Bound parameters created in the Title column provide the data that needs to be used during the execution of the step. An example would be “Login using @username @password”. Bound parameters created in the Expected column provide the tester the expected result that needs to be verified. An Example would be “User’s @emailaddress”.

Unbound parameters – Unbound parameters created in the Title column let the tester know that a value needs to be used but was not known at the time the test was created. An example of this would be “Enter in current @?date”. Unbound parameters created in the Expected column let the tester know a result needs to be validated during the execution of this test. But the value was not known at the time of the creation of the parameter. An example of this would be “Number of Today’s @unreademails”.

After that explanation are parameters making sense? How do you feel about the concept of Data bound and Unbound parameters?

 

Basic rules of parameters:

· Use @ for Data bound and @? for Unbound

· The name of the parameter cannot contain spaces

· The first character of the name of the parameter needs to be a letter

· You can use a parameter in more than one step

· You can also use a parameter in both columns

 

Add data to the parameter:

1. Click on the Data button

2. In each row add the data for one iteration of the test

Finally you can specify which steps require validation from the tester:

1. Click on the step

2. Click on the Toggle Step Validation button

3. A red check mark will appear next to the step

 

Now that you have seen a basic walk through of creating new Test Case with steps and parameters, what do you think of the new feature?

What else do you think a manual tester would need available in a Test Case?

Is there any part of the Test Case that you don’t think you would use, and what would be your reason for not using it?

Finally what other features of TCM would you like us to blog about?

You can find more information on “Rosario” and the August 2007 CTP at https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink?LinkID=96097

Thanks, 

Rusty Scrivens