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awhawh's avatar
awhawh
Contributor
7 years ago
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Multiple testers simultaneously writing tests against a project controlled through Source Control

Hi,

 

I've been developing a TC framework for my company. The intention is to check-in the project through Visual Studio and enables testers to connect to the project through TestComplete's Source Control feature, opening from Team Foundation Server

 

The intention is to allow multiple testers to create keyword tests; however, I can see through pracice that adding a new test forces the tester to check-out the 'parent' keyword test project file. I can understand the reason for this control but unfortunately only allows one tester at a time to create a test.

 

Does any one have experience of such a scenario and whether the 'add existing item' option is the way to go, where each tester is forced to work offline and use the 'add existing item' option to add their test into the Source controlled project?

 

Thanks


Adam

  • tristaanogre's avatar
    tristaanogre
    7 years ago

    One thing that you need to make sure of is that, after checking in the latest changes, the tester gets the latest source again.  They aren't going to have exclusively their own test cases only... they will, eventually, end up with the test cases that other testers have added.  Merging of the KeywordTests.tcKDT is actually pretty easy with this in mind.  It's just a matter of making sure that, when you check in, you have your cases add and don't accidentally remove someone elses.  It does take some co-ordination but, to date, with three testers hitting the same KeywordTests.tcKDT file in TFS, we haven't had any problems merging.

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  • tristaanogre's avatar
    tristaanogre
    Esteemed Contributor
    7 years ago

    Actually, we're doing pretty much what you're doing.  The way we have TFS set up is that the "checkout" of items in TFS is not an exclusive lock.  I can check out the KeywordTests.tcKDT file to add a new KeywordTest and so can my collegue.  When we check in, we then merge any changes.

    • awhawh's avatar
      awhawh
      Contributor
      7 years ago

      Thanks for your reply

       

      I not totally sure what merging actually means in this instance. If you have in affect two versions of the KeywordTests.tcKDT files, one per tester, each reflecting the tester's own additional test how do you know what version is the most up-to-date or does it simply require close cooperation between both testers?

      • tristaanogre's avatar
        tristaanogre
        Esteemed Contributor
        7 years ago

        One thing that you need to make sure of is that, after checking in the latest changes, the tester gets the latest source again.  They aren't going to have exclusively their own test cases only... they will, eventually, end up with the test cases that other testers have added.  Merging of the KeywordTests.tcKDT is actually pretty easy with this in mind.  It's just a matter of making sure that, when you check in, you have your cases add and don't accidentally remove someone elses.  It does take some co-ordination but, to date, with three testers hitting the same KeywordTests.tcKDT file in TFS, we haven't had any problems merging.