Share steps between test cases

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TFS 2017 | TFS 2015
Visual Studio 2017 | Visual Studio 2015

Note

Microsoft Test Manager has been deprecated. It has been replaced with Azure Test Plans, a fully featured test management solution. Microsoft Test Manager 2017, which shipped with Microsoft Visual Studio 2017, is the last version available.

When you plan manual tests there are some sequences of steps, such as logging in, that occur in many test cases. To avoid having to enter these sequences again and again, create shared steps.

To use all the features described in this article, you must have one of the following subscriptions:

Or, configure Basic + Test Plans access level.

See Manual testing permissions and access.

Create shared steps

While you're editing a test case, select a sequence of steps that you want to share:

Create shared steps

The steps you selected are replaced with a link to the new shared steps work item:

Resulting test case with a shared step.

Use shared steps

Now you can use the shared steps in another test case:

Use shared steps in test cases.

An Azure DevOps or TFS query opens. Run it to find the steps you want to insert:

Run the query to find shared steps

When you run a test with shared steps

When you run a test, you can either mark the whole shared sequence as passed or failed, or mark each step separately:

Shared steps in Test Runner.

See also

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