How to: Add a Test Suite to a Test Plan
You can create different types of test suites in your test plan depending on your testing approach, or you can just use the default test suite provided and add your test cases into that suite. How to add these different types of test suite is shown in the following illustration:
.png "Create Different Types of Test Suites")
This procedure describes how to create a test suite and add either existing or new test cases to it. For more information about the different types of test suites and how to organize them into a hierarchy, see Organizing Test Cases Using Test Suites.
Add a test suite to a test plan
To add a test suite to a test plan
Open Microsoft Test Manager.
Note
To display the Microsoft Test Manager window, click Start, and then click All Programs. Point to Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 and then click Microsoft Test Manager 2010.
From the Testing Center, click Plan and then click Contents.
The Contents pane is displayed.
Select the location in the test suite hierarchy pane where you want to create this test suite and then click New in the pane that shows the test suite hierarchy.
Note
The test suite hierarchy has a root node that has the same name as the test plan. You can add test cases or test suites to this test suite root node, but you cannot rename it.
Type the name for your new test suite.
The name will also be displayed in the test suite details pane.
Click State and select from the list of states, based on the following table:
State
When to use it
In Planning
If you are not yet ready to run the tests in this test suite.
In Progress
When you are ready to run the tests in this test suite.
Completed
When you have finished running the tests in this test suite and the quality level reached meets your goals.
Important
To run tests, you must set the status of a test suite to In Progress.
To change the default configurations for the test suite you created if you want them to be different from the defaults for the plan, click Configurations.
The dialog box is displayed that shows all the configurations for your team project and the current default configurations for your test plan.
You must first clear Use configurations from parent test suite, and then select the default configurations that you want to add and any that you want to remove.
Note
Changing the default configurations only affects new test cases or test suites that are added to this test suite. For more information about how to change the pairings of tests and configurations that are already in your test plan, see the procedure about how to update configurations for specific test cases.
To add an existing test case to this test suite, click Add.
The Add test cases to suite dialog box is displayed. All available test cases are shown in the list of tests.
Note
Tests that have already been added to the test suite are not shown in the list of tests.
(Optional) If there are several test cases listed, you can narrow your test case search by using one of the following procedures:
Type text that appears in the title of the test case and then click Search.
To expand to view all the filters, click Expand to View Filters. Then type the specific data to find the test case that you want to add.
Select the tests you want to add, and then click Add test cases.
The test cases you selected are now displayed in the test suite details pane.
To create a test case and add it to this test suite, click New.
The New Test Case dialog box is displayed.
Enter the details for your new test case including the actions and expected results for each test step, and then click Save and Close.
The new test case is now displayed in the test suite details pane.
Note
For more information about how to create new test cases, see How to: Create a Manual Test Case.
To add more test cases, repeat the previous two steps.
Note
All the existing test cases you add, or new test cases that you create, are paired with each default configuration to define what tests must be run on which configurations for the test plan. To see these pairings, select the test suite and click Configurations.
The changes you have made to the test plan are automatically saved.