New TestTrack features include a new native relational database, custom fields that calculate values, and draft and active custom fields. Surround SCM’s new features include improved offline support, more flexible mainline branches, and additional integrations, while QA Wizard Pro now features stress testing, Google Chrome support, integration enhancements, and more.

In the one-hour webinar, Paula Rome and Grant Lammi, Seapine product managers, will demonstrate the new features in Seapine ALM 2012. When the demonstration is over, you’ll have time to ask questions and learn more.

The webinar is being offered twice to accommodate Europe and North America attendees. The first webinar begins at 2:00 p.m. Western European Time (9:00 a.m. Eastern Standard Time), and the second will follow at 2:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (11:00 a.m. Pacific Standard Time).

Join us!

Mobile Meetings

The Task Board is a great way to enhance your existing meetings and stand-ups, whether they’re in a conference room or just outside of your cube. Meeting leaders can use an iPad or other tablet computer to give everyone insight into project status and make changes to project artifacts on the fly. Remote team members can get a real-time view of the same information, with the ability to view and update work items along with the rest of the team. Meetings become much more efficient, and the team isn’t left in the dark just because a member or two might be traveling and unable to reach a computer to provide their updates.

Role-Based Security

When a user opens the Agile Task Board, their login credentials are passed to the TestTrack Server, ensuring that role-based privileges and the data they are authorized to see also apply to the task board. If their TestTrack security doesn’t allow them to change defect status, for example, they won’t be allowed to change status from  the task board either.

Configurable Workflow

The Agile Task Board is configured to follow the workflow defined in a specific TestTrack project, and syncs all changes between the task board and that project. As your processes change or you find better ways to work, you can change the task board view by modifying the workflow in the TestTrack project. Those modifications will be reflected in real-time in the task board.

Bi-Directional Sync

The Agile Task Board automatically refreshes on a preset schedule, and users can manually refresh at any time to ensure they have the most current information. This keep task board data up-to-date and synchronized with the TestTrack Server. Teams that use a combination of traditional client tools and web interfaces can work together without worrying about acting on different data.

Agile Task Board Enhancements

The Agile Task Board runs on the standard SOAP interface, enabling teams to customize and enhance the interface in any number of ways. With some web scripting skills and an understanding of how to call the SOAP API from those scripts, or the help of the Seapine Services team, teams can get any data or reports available in TestTrack delivered straight to the Agile Task Board.

Please contact sales@seapine.com for more information and a demonstration of the TestTrack Agile Task Board.

Over the new few weeks, we’ll be sharing more videos and blog posts to show you specific calculated field examples. In the meantime, the following screenshots will give you a sneak peek into calculated fields.

The first change you will notice is the new Calculated field format on the Setup Custom Fields dialog.

Setup Custom Fields

The following screenshots show how a risk score can be calculated.

Risk Score Calculation

Watch the following video to see this new feature in action.

1. In TestTrack TCM, open the test case you would like use for creating your automated script. Click the “Steps” tab and then click the “Create Script” button

TestTrack TCM Create Script

2. QA Wizard Pro starts if it’s not already running. The Create Automated Test Case dialog also opens.

Create Automated Test Case

3. Enter a Script Name, then select a script creation method. For this example, I’m recording a new script with step notes. This option records a script as you perform the displayed test case steps.

4. Next, select the application you want to record the steps against. Then, click “Record” to start recording.

5. The applications starts. The test case steps and expected results are displayed.

6. Perform the steps you want to record.

7. Click “Done” after completing each step to add the actions to the script. If you do not click Done after each step, all the recorded actions are added to the end of the script.

Recording Automated Test Case

8. Click the “Stop” button when you complete all the steps, to finish the recording process.

The script is created. The test case steps, recorded actions, and a hyperlink to the test case are included in the script. Test case steps are added to the script as TestCaseStep statements.

Automated Script in QA Wizard Pro

The new script can now be executed using QA Wizard Pro or even added to a batch file.

What’s New?

Following are some of the highlights of this release. More information is available on the beta site.

• TestTrack now includes support for calculated fields, allowing custom fields to automatically calculate their values based on values in other fields. If you use our native backend database rather than an RDBMS, the format has been changed to SQLite, with a variety of performance enhancements. And, to improve the ability to create test cases, we’ve added QA Wizard Pro enhancements that allow you to automatically record and create your test steps.
• For Surround SCM, we’ve improved our support for offline changes with an enhanced working directory differences dialog and a new sync repository command. Mainline branches can also now have separate configurations from your overall server settings, giving  teams more flexibility. We’ve also added a number of new third-party integrations.
• In QA Wizard Pro, we’ve added support for the Google Chrome browser. A whole new set of testing is also now possible with our new stress testing support, allowing you to test applications in stressed conditions that are difficult to create, such as low disk space and memory, network communication problems, and read-only disk errors.

Register for the Seapine ALM 2012 Betas

Your spreadsheet now includes more information about each test case, such as when a test case was run, how long it took, where it failed, if a defect report was created, how long it took the defect to be resolved, and much more. That spreadsheet now has several dozen columns, with a jumble of dates, numbers, and text. You can’t easily view or report on the data you’re tracking.

One day you realize your simple spreadsheet has become an unwieldy mess. You spend more time each day making sure it’s up-to-date because management is constantly asking for progress and issue updates, yet you can’t reliably identify any testing trends or prove that all features are being tested. You now spend your days managing the spreadsheet and entering the other testers’ data, instead of working on your own test case backlog.

Confusing & unwieldy test management

You’re probably looking at the spreadsheet and wondering if it’s time to take the next step and find a better system.

How do you know if you’ve outgrown your homegrown way of managing test cases? Our eBook, 10 Ways You Know You Need a New Approach to Test Management, provides ten signs to look out for.