How to: Select a Build For Your Test Plan
If you are using Team Foundation Build to build your application under test, you can select a build to use for your test plan. This is the build that you want all the testers to use. By selecting a build, you can then determine requirements that have been implemented in a specific build or bugs that have been fixed, or recommended tests to run. For more information, see Determining Which Builds Have Bug Fixes, New Features, or Requirements and Recommending Tests to Run That are Affected by Code Changes.
There may be many builds created for your team project. You might want to limit the builds that you see by setting up a build filter. This will limit the build definitions by name. In addition, you can limit the builds based on the quality assigned to them. For example, you might want to see only retail builds with a build quality of initial test passed. For more information about builds, see Building the Application.
To select a build for your 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.
To select a build for your test plan, click the down-arrow on the center group switcher and then click Testing Center.
In the center group menu bar, click Plan.
If the test plan is not set as your current plan context, click the test plan hyperlink in the upper-right corner, and then select the test plan from the list. Next, click Select plan.
To limit the builds that are displayed for your test plan, click Properties and then click the drop-down arrow for Filter for builds.
The Filter completed builds dialog box is displayed.
To select the build definitions that you want to see, click Build definition and select from the list of available build definitions.
To select the build quality to use to filter builds, click Build quality and select from the build qualities.
(Optional) To clear the current build filter settings, click Clear all.
Note
If you clear or change the build filter values, the Build in use is reset and no longer contains a build. You must reselect the build that you are currently using, based on your new build filter.
To save the build filter selections, click Set build filter.
To change the build that you are currently using to test your application, you must first click Save to save the changes for the build filter and then click Modify.
The Assign Build activity is displayed. You can compare your current build with a build you plan to take. The associated items list shows the changes to work items between the builds to help you decide. You can then select a new build to take and use for testing with this plan. For more information about how to select a build, see Determining Which Builds Have Bug Fixes, New Features, or Requirements.
To select a build from your build candidates, click Available builds and select from the list of builds and then click Assign to plan.
Warning
By default, a build definition keeps the last ten builds. These are listed for you to select. To change the number of builds that are kept, you must change the retention policy for the build definition. For more information about how to do this, see the steps relating to the retention policy tab in the following topic:Create a Basic Build Definition.
To view the details associated with the selected build, click View build details.
To close the Assign Build activity and return to the test plan properties, click the Close icon.
To save these changes for this test plan, click Save in the toolbar.