The Seapine View

We added some cool new features to QA Wizard Pro 2011.1—from a new Keyword view for scripts to more supported technologies, this is a very exciting release. But the thing I am the most excited about is the new QA Wizard Pro Server.

Truthfully, the QA Wizard Pro Server is not completely new. If you’ve used QA Wizard Pro, you might be familiar with the Global Repository Server. The QA Wizard Pro Server is a mix of the Global Repository and new enhancements for reporting and monitoring script status. Just like the Global Repository, its use is optional.

Every time a QA Wizard Pro script or batch file runs, the results can be stored in the QA Wizard Pro Server. The run results are stored in an RDBMS database, which now provides a permanent home for run results. The default RDBMS is SQLite. You can also use Microsoft SQL and Oracle.

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There is a new addition to Seapine ALM product suite—Seapine ALM Reporting Platform (Seapine ALM RP). Seapine ALM RP is a database warehouse that can contain data from the entire Seapine ALM suite. This means you can have data from the Seapine License Server, TestTrack, Surround SCM, and QA Wizard Pro in a single, normalized database.

Seapine ALM Reporting Platform

Seapine ALM RP is not for everyone. If you are already getting the reports you need from the products, then Seapine ALM RP is not for you. For those of you who need custom reports that may span different projects in TestTrack, different mainlines in Surround SCM, or different product databases, Seapine ALM RP is right for you.

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New capabilities were added to this functionality in Surround SCM 2012, click to read more!

In all the years that I’ve been using Surround SCM, I have occasionally needed to make changes to files when I wasn’t in the office and wasn’t connected to the Surround SCM Server. Once I returned to the office, I needed to sync those changes with Surround SCM.

In this video, I show how to use the Repository Differences feature to sync the changes in working directories with the repository in Surround SCM. Not only is this a useful feature for syncing changes made while working offline, but it’s also useful for managing changes to 3rd-party libraries.

TestTrack supports many types of fields. One of the most used is the pop-up menu field, also known as a drop-down field. These fields sometimes end up with lists ranging in the hundreds of items in them, which makes them hard to use. In TestTrack you can specify field relationships, which allow you to limit the choices that are available to the user based on the value selected in another field. You designate a field to be the parent and one or more fields to be the child. The value chosen in the parent field determines which values will be available in the child field.

The TestTrack user guide already covers the mechanics of how to set up field relationships, so I am not going to repeat that. Instead, let’s look at some guidelines and possible use cases.

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A well-written test case is important for meeting high quality standards. While there are many opinions on what constitutes a well-written test case, I think there are some that almost everyone can agree on.

In this video, I cover some of these best practices and also show you how to write test cases in TestTrack. The video also shows a new enhancement in the upcoming 2011.1 release of TestTrack that allows you to include attachments with each step.

The upcoming TestTrack 2011.1 release includes a new Detail Grid to Test Runs that allows you to do many things with the test steps, such as attach files to record actual results and pass/fail each step. Keep in mind that TestTrack still has the standard grid, so this doesn’t have to change the way you currently run tests. You can choose which type of grid in the test case.

In this video I cover how to run manual tests in TestTrack, including using the detail steps grid. I also show how the information transfers to a defect that is created from the failed test.

The TestTrack 2010.1 release included a new Folder Task Board, which displays the status of TestTrack items in a Task Board format. The columns were hard-coded and determined based on time tracking. The How Items Are Grouped in TestTrack Release Status post explains this in detail.

The upcoming 2011.1 release includes a new Folder Task Board Report With Configurable Columns report, which allows you to define your own columns and map them to states in the workflow.

Add Report Window

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TestTrack allows you to set fields as required, which applies throughout the entire lifecycle of an item. Sometimes, however, you may want to set a field as required based on the workflow state or another field. You can use triggers to ensure a field has a value before it reaches a state, or to ensure a field has a value based on another field. In both instances, the mechanics are the same, and this applies to all development, test, and requirement artifacts tracked by TestTrack.

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Automation in your process is key to reducing human error and delays. While automation also includes things like automatically assigning bugs to developers and setting fields to specific values based on certain conditions, I’ll talk about email notifications in this post.

Seapine ALM can send automatic notifications. Surround SCM and TestTrack can notify users when something happens under specific circumstances. In fact, Surround SCM 2011.1 introduces enhancements that provide more dynamic notifications, such as notifying the last user that checked in files, the user selected in a custom field, and more.

If notifications are not set up properly, you risk spamming your users with emails that are not of interest and just make noise. Before you know it, users set up a rule to route emails sent from Seapine ALM to a folder that will rarely be reviewed.

While the mechanics of notifications in TestTrack and Surround SCM are different, the following high-level best practices apply to both.

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Surround SCM includes several user options that allow each user to optimize the way they use Surround SCM. While there can be a whole discussion about which options makes the most sense to have set as default, starting in 2011.1 you (as the administrator) will have more control on how these user options are set. Under Tools > Administration, you will find a new option named Default User Options. Here, you have three options for each user option:

• <no default>: Users already using Surround SCM will not see any changes, new users will have the defaults that ship with the product. This means no change from the way it currently works.
• Default: Users already using Surround SCM will not see any changes, new users will get this option as default.
• Required: This enforces the option for all users.

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