Thank you to everyone who participated in the Tracking Metrics with Calculated Fields Webinar. The webinar recording is now available if you were unable to attend or if you would like another look. Q & A from the session follows.
Remember, this is part two of a three part series. You can still register for the webinar series.
Seapine ALM 2012 includes a number of new ways for testers to work with automated test cases with enhanced integration between TestTrack TCM and QA Wizard Pro. The What’s New in 2012 webinar provides an overview of the significant new features in the Seapine ALM 2012 release, including the integration between TestTrack TCM and QA Wizard Pro. Gerhard Kruger’s video demo also shows how to automate test cases stored in TestTrack TCM using QA Wizard Pro.
But there is more to integrating automation and test case management than creating automated scripts from manual steps. There are three different scenarios for automating and managing test cases using these solutions.
Share on Technorati . del.icio.us . Digg . Reddit . Slashdot . Facebook . StumbleUponIn a recent post about “watching” approved requirements, I presented a simple workflow for moving requirements through the development process. In the real-world though, we see customers using more granular workflows to accurately gauge progress and track changes throughout the lifecycle. These workflows work great for folks down in the trenches of the project, but don’t always translate as you report on that progress up the chain.
Look at the slightly more complicated workflow below, where we’ve expanded the review cycle to better track where a requirement is in the review/approval loop.
Expanded workflow, with detailed review/approve progress tracking
Thank you to everyone who participated in the Intro to Calculated Fields webinar. The webinar recording is now available if you weren’t able to attend or if you would like to watch it again. Q&A from the session follows.
Remember, this is the first in a three-part series. You can still register for the webinar series.
Q: Do calculated fields work for any item type in TestTrack, or only issues?
A: Calculated fields are supported across all item types, including issues, test cases, test runs, and all requirement types.
Q: What versions of TestTrack support calculated fields?
A: Calculated fields were introduced in TestTrack 2012, released last month.
Q: Can you use calculated fields with other fields to create a new calculated field?
A: Yes, that’s the power of calculated fields. You can take information from other parts of an item and essentially create a whole new piece of data. For example, you could combine severity and location of an issue to define an issue’s priority.
Q: Can we make a calculation based on the status of a different item? For example, the risk level of one item when it or another item changes?
A: Not currently. Right now calculated fields don’t have the ability to look outside of the item, meaning they can’t pull data from linked items or use other criteria outside of their own scope.
Q: Is all the functionality shown in the demonstration also available in the web version of TestTrack 2012?
A: Yes, both the web and desktop clients have full support for creating, updating, and using calculated fields.
Q: How do you set up the date/time calculations—like weeks to close?
A: See Using Date Functions in Calculated Fields.
Q: If you change the calculation and rerun a report will you get a different value?
A: Reports use the field values in an item at the time the report is run. If the changed formula hasn’t been recalculated when a report is run, the report won’t show the new value because the field itself doesn’t have the new value. Calculated fields are always recalculated when another field or event is changed on an item.
Share on Technorati . del.icio.us . Digg . Reddit . Slashdot . Facebook . StumbleUponRequirement snapshots in TestTrack are a great way to baseline requirement documents as they move through the creation, review, approval and implementation phase. Here’s an example of a straightforward workflow for requirement documents, where we draft, review, approve, then implement the requirement document.
Simple requirements document workflow diagram
How you work with requirements in TestTrack depends on your role and where your team is in the development lifecycle (SDLC). I’ve outlined three ways of looking at the same data, giving everyone on the team flexibility in how they develop, review, approve, and track requirements throughout the lifecycle.
Share on Technorati . del.icio.us . Digg . Reddit . Slashdot . Facebook . StumbleUponI recently posted a video that shows you how to record a TestTrack TCM test cases using QAWizard Pro. This newest video shows you how to do the opposite—use an existing TestTrack TCM test case to create an automated test script in QA Wizard Pro.
Here’s a quick look at how you can set up TestTrack to notify you of changes to approved requirements. Following is a sample workflow for requirements, where we’re essentially putting every requirement into one of three silos: Ready for Review, Approved, or Implemented.
Simple requirements workflow diagram
Join Seapine for a three-part webinar series showcasing TestTrack 2012′s new calculated fields. You can now use your issue tracking data as a starting point to to calculate key metrics, compute risk scores, consolidate field values, and more! You’ll learn how to get started with calculated fields and see real-world calculated field examples, including how to calculate risk scores and how to determine the length of time an item has been in the backlog.
Each 30-minute webinar will delve further into the day’s topics:
Register today and get started using calculated fields!
Share on Technorati . del.icio.us . Digg . Reddit . Slashdot . Facebook . StumbleUponWhether you’re looking to meet SLA commitments to a customer, or just want to make sure work items don’t get lost in the shuffle, tracking how long an item spends in various areas of the workflow is a pre-requisite to good process enforcement. Gerhard’s video on using date functions with calculated fields walks through the process of creating a custom field that shows the number of days an issue has been in its current state. This “Days in Current State” metric is useful for catching items that have been lost in the shuffle of day-to-day work. Of course, relying on someone to manually check for items that someone else has forgotten about is not a best practice. You’d be much better off automating that process, letting the TestTrack escalation engine catch and update those items.
First, you need to create a filter that can trap items that have languished in the workflow. This depends on your process or SLA commitments, but a simple example would be to look for defects that have not moved workflow state for more than 15 days. If you recall from the video, we excluded weekends from the “Days in Current State” field so this gives someone three weeks to do something with the defect before it is escalated.
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