IE9 support in Test Manager and Coded UI testing

Overall IE9 is supported by Test Manager and Coded UI testing. You should check here for details on what exactly is supported and what isn’t.

You will need to download SP1 feature pack.

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Microsoft Test Manager– What is my test state at the Test Plan level?

Check out the Visual Studio Team Test blog on using Excel reports with MTM to identify test state at a test plan level. This is a step by step on how to create the report in excel using information on your test state from Test Manager.

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Testing Tools Your Teams Want–Microsoft Visual Studio & MTM

Microsoft has launched a new web site Testing Tools Your Teams Want

There are concept video’s covering testing topics.

White Papers on Performance and Stress Testing, Effective & Efficient Testing, Integrated Lab Management

Research and Evidence speaks for itself.

If you want to find out about Microsoft Testing tools this is the place.

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Microsoft Test Manager (MTM) – action recordings

MTM 2010 has opened up the world of manual testing with data-driven and fast forward capabilities. Plus, they have taken extra steps to ensure your successful here is an example of one.

Your are opening an application from a short cut on your desktop. Test Manager will capture and store the path to where you have placed the application executable and the path based on the %USERPROFILE%. In my example it looks like this:

 Launch '%USERPROFILE%\Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Projects\Calculator\Calculator\bin\Debug\Calculator.exe'

In this example if I remove the executable from my desktop and pin it to my start menu the test will execute successfully. If I then remove it from my start menu and pin it to my task bar the test again executes successfully. In addition the test actions is opening the executable not following the human interaction of double-clicking. This makes your test even less subset able to failure. Note that these types of failures are not application issues and therefore we’d really like to not have to deal with them.

Thanks to Microsoft there is less chance of this slowing our testing down due to setup issues.

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The Testing Planet–all about testing

The Software Testing Club puts out a magazine call “The Testing Planet”. It is a must to read you can either buy a subscription to the magazine or download the PDF version for free. The magazine is created by “testers” with articles about testing by testers. The new issue just came out – check it out.

You can follow the club on Linked IN, Facebook and Twitter.

Enjoy … Testa

 

Microsoft Test Manager, Coded UI (CUIT), Web Performance & Load, Bugs, using TFS2010 – 3 day course in Toronto 10% off

If you have never been to Toronto here is your chance plus while here you can learn about Microsoft Test Manager, Coded UI testing, Web & Load testing, the new Bug, Fast Forwarded Manual Testing, and all you need to know about TFS2010 the communicator. Here is your chance. Check out our 3 day course offering being held March 9th to 11th and get 10% off.

Contact: trainging@newhorizon.ca 

Tell them Testa send you …

Microsoft Test Manager–Preview a step during runtime

Have you every been in a situation where you have had to execute a test that you did not create or you were not involved in the project at the being. You could use a walk through or in the least more information on what this test is about, how each step will interact with the application, it might be a bug your retesting. It could even be an exploratory test that someone had not created a true test case with steps. Test Manager during run time has a handy feature that lets you preview a step or steps.

See how and examples:

Select a step – any step within the test click on the Play dropdown arrow and select Preview

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Here is an example of selecting a shared step for preview.

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Here is an example of a step with multiple lines (see blog: Microsoft Test Manager–test case multi steps tool) and a parameter.

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Last an example of a exploratory test case – you got to like this one.

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Microsoft Test Manager–Test Attachment Cleaner tool

One of my favourite Test Manager feature is the data and diagnostics that collects information during my test runs to pass on in any bugs I log or get attached to my test run. The action recording proves the test case steps were followed, they allow me to fast forward the test next time I run the test or iterations. It has eliminated the bug state “Cannot Reproduce” The time all this data collected saves me in dealing with just bugs is unlimited. Developers love it too, they can diagnose bugs in no time.

I wonder if this helps in reducing the affect of the bug fix breaking other code. Now that would be interesting to investigate. Next project I’ll have to investigate all Test Impact and track how many were due to code changes involved in a bug fix.

Now I am in year five of using Test Manager and Visual Studio data diagnostics and my test runs and bugs are adding up in quantity therefore my database is getting full of all these test attachments. Do I really need to store the test attachments from a project that is done and 9 months old. Maybe not. What can I do?

The Test Attachment Cleaner a command line power tool that accepts parameters to remove test attachments form the database. Here are some examples:

  • Identify list of attachments taking up database space of more than 1 GB per attachment
  • View/Delete IntelliTrace log files over a size of 500 MB
  • View/Delete all Video log files with Test run creation date older than specific date with no active bugs
  • View/Delete all TRX & COV log files for test runs that happened between 30 and 90 days in age & do not perform the Linked Bugs lookup query
  • View/Delete all custom/user attachments over size of 5 MB with no active or resolved bugs on test runs between 2 dates

Find out more and download Test Attachment Cleaner

If you need to keep the test attachment data it can be stored remotely which is setup in the Test Plan properties, test settings.

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Microsoft Test Manager–test case multi steps tool

Testers have been asking for multi-step capability in test cases. Shai Raiten has created a tool that enables test case step multi lines. The Test Steps Editor enables editing of actions and expected results to add multi-lines. The tool works with both Shared Steps and Test Cases.

Here is an example of the tool:

You need to know your work item id, enter then click Load, the test case steps displays.

Put your cursor at the end of the line above where you want to add a line.

Alt+Enter adds a line below the selected line.

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Click to download the Test Steps Editor.

Thanks to Shai,

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Test Manager, The Story of a

I am a member of the The Software Testing Club which is a global and professional community of software testers. The community shares information through online question and answer sessions and access to test related bloggers, updates on testing events worldwide, The Testing Planet online articles, and much more. If you  are not a member I highly suggest you join. Follow the link above.

A member of the club, Rob Lambert wrote a story “The Story of a Test Manager” that I spent an hour while drinking my morning coffee reading. The story is fictional however, I bet you can relate to the main points through your own experiences as a software tester. As I read the story I wanted to tell the characters about TFS2010 but then I want to tell everyone even my hair dresser. My dogs love hearing the words TFS they think it’s a cookie!  Microsoft TFS nerd and proud of it.

Thanks to Rob Lambert for a great story.

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