Forum Discussion

Neidhardt's avatar
Neidhardt
New Contributor
3 years ago

test-handling

Hello community,
We have just started with Zephyr Scale and now a few questions come up. I hope they can be answered here.
- Is it possible to specify a mandatory order of test steps in the test script? It should not be possible to test step 2 before step 1.
- How can a tester be notified when a test cycle starts and a test is assigned to him?
- Is it possible to specify the order in which test cases should be processed?

 

Does anyone have a solution or a hint how to solve this?
This would help a lot

Thanks in advance
Andreas

InsideZephyrScale
  • MisterB's avatar
    MisterB
    Champion Level 3
    3 years ago

    Hi.  I'll try to provide info about each question and will number them 1-3 in the order asked:

     

    1. Not that I'm aware of.  But to be fair, the test steps have large numbers next to them so that's a good clue about the order ğŸ˜Š.  While the order of step execution is not mandatory, if a tester does skip a step for a reason, I ask them to always set the status of a test step to Blocked or Fail AND create an Issue so that the cause of the missed step can be managed. 

     

    2. Sadly, there's no notification feature as yet.  I hope this is coming soon as it would be a major improvement for everyone.  I manage this gap using reports and dashboards for me and stakeholders at project level, for workstream and team leads at a team level, and another for testers.

     

    3. Technically yes but if you're adding test cases manually you have to add test cases in the order you want them to appear.  You can add them all at the same time in one activity but the order that you click them to be added is the order they will appear.  If you save those additions and then go back to add more, those new additions will appear at the top of your list.  If you get the order wrong, you can manually drag test cases into the order you want.  Alternatively, you can import test cases by CSV and do all the sorting in the CSV before import - I'm assuming that the order in the CSV is used. Be mindful that the test case order you specify could be changed if a tester changes the sort order of test cases in the Test Player, e.g. sort by Status.

     

    Hope that helps.

    Andy

    • Neidhardt's avatar
      Neidhardt
      New Contributor
      3 years ago

      Hi Andy (aka MisterB)
      Thank you very much for the quick and detailed answer.

      My concern with my questions about the sequence of cases or steps was to define them in such a way that the tester has to follow a certain sequence.
      But if I understand correctly, the order in which the cases and steps are processed is the sole responsibility of the tester. If that's the case, it's a shame, but I guess it can't be changed.

       

      Your tip to create certain dashboards for certain user groups (i.e. also for testers) was promising. I will therefore try to create my own dashboards for the testers project role, which can serve as a source of information for their current to-dos.
      This won't replace a system for defining a certain workflow, but it might help for now.

       

      Thx again and best wishes
      Neidhardt (aka Andy 🙂)

       

       

  • MisterB's avatar
    MisterB
    Champion Level 3
    3 years ago

    Hi Andy!

     

    Thanks for the clarification.  I thought that was the case but as you figured out, it's not possible to force a tester to follow a specific order.  All you can do is try to make it obvious by the display order or you might want to consider adding numbers/references into the test case name so that it's even clearer what order to execute them.

     

    Regarding the dashboard approach, I shared an example recently of a dashboard I created for testers on my current project.  There is some detail included in how to create a dynamic 'outstanding tests' report for each tester.

     

    View for Users to See All Assigned Executions - SmartBear Community

     

    Best of luck with it but if you need any help just post a message and we'll try to help 🙂

     

    Best, Andy