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Beta 8 Preview: Test Case Dependencies
January 6, 2006
The single biggest feature request for Test Run has been for hierarchical test plans, or in other words, test case dependencies. Test case dependencies help streamline the test process by ensuring that QA engineers focus only on the tests that can be run. For example, imagine a sitation where test case A depends upon test case B. That means that test case A cannot be executed until test case B passes. Therefore, if test case B was executed, but failed, then test case A is “blocked” until test case B is re-executed and passes. In this state, there is no sense in an engineer even looking at test case A, right?
If that is at all confusing to you, then that is exactly why you need Test Run. Maintaining a dependency tree manually is cumbersome and tedious at best. Difficult enough that most organizations don’t bother tracking dependencies in such a way that they can be reported upon, or in such a way that QA engineers can track them while they execute their tests.
Test Run takes all the tedium and guess work out of managing test case dependencies. In Test Run, all one needs to do is identify a dependency, and Test Run manages the rest:
- Test Run provides an intuitive user interface for navigating dependency trees.
- Test Run prevents blocked test cases from being executed.
- Test Run highlights test cases that are blocking further testing progress.
- Test Run reports the percentage of blocked tests versus those that have not yet been run, or those that have been marked as failed or passed.
In the next couple of weeks Test Run Beta 8 will be released, and test case dependencies will form the centerpiece of the release. Development has already started, so if you have any additional feature requests, or particular questions or concerns about test case dependencies, now it the time. Leave a comment and let us know.
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Hi,
In your blog posting above you mention you are going to release your Beta 8 in a couple of weeks.. we're now a month on from that, so I was wondering how your getting on with it?
Have you also managed to fix the bugs that are in your current Beta 7?
Cheers,
Chris
Comments
Thank you for keeping me honest. A lot has happened in the last month - things I had hoped for, but not planned for.
I have partnered with a well regarded design company in San Francisco to help me in the design of Test Run - focusing on how to improve upon its ease of use, cohesiveness and of course: look and feel. This development has caused me to revisit the current priorities.
One of which, sadly, is that test case dependencies is going to have to wait in favor of focusing on Test Run's "out of box experience" and the overall look and feel of the application.
Stayed tuned - I will keep everyone up to date as the project progresses. Although you wouldn't know that from my radio silence recently. My apologies.
About Byrne Reese
Byrne Reese is a product manager by day and an engineer by night.
He conceived of Test Run to help project managers like him stay up to date and informed of what his team was working on.
Major kudos to not only the fact that Yahoo open sourced some of their UI widgets, but that they did so under the BSD license, allowing even more people to freely use these widgets in their applications. For example,... [Read More]
From majordojo on February 14, 2006 9:11 AM