Exploratory Testing and Other Enhancements in Microsoft Test Manager 2012

Hands-On Lab

Exploratory Testing and Other Enhancements in Microsoft Test Manager 2012

Lab version:11.0.60315.01 Update 2

Last updated:4/9/2013

Contents

Overview

Exercise 1: Exploratory Testing Improvements

Overview

In this lab, you will learn about some of the improvements in Microsoft Test Manager 2012. You will learn about how exploratory testing (also called XT, or agile testing) has become a first-class experience in the toolset. This allows a tester to more flexibly test the underlying software without relying solely on formal test cases. Meanwhile, Microsoft Test Manager will continue to capture rich diagnostics about the application being tested which can be delivered to the development team if a bug is discovered. You’ll also learn about some of the other fit-and-finish features in Microsoft Test Manager, such as the ability to use rich text when authoring test cases.

Prerequisites

In order to complete this lab you will need the Visual Studio 2012 virtual machine provided by Microsoft. For more information on acquiring and using this virtual machine, please see this blog post.

About the Fabrikam Fiber Scenario

This set of hands-on-labs uses a fictional company, Fabrikam Fiber, as a backdrop to the scenarios you are learning about. Fabrikam Fiber provides cable television and related services to the United States. They are growing rapidly and have embraced Windows Azure to scale their customer-facing web site directly to end-users to allow them to self-service tickets and track technicians. They also use an on-premises ASP.NET MVC application for their customer service representatives to administer customer orders.

In this set of hands-on labs, you will take part in a number of scenarios that involve the development and testing team at Fabrikam Fiber. The team, which consists of 8-10 people, has decided to use Visual Studio application lifecycle management tools to manage their source code, run their builds, test their web sites, and plan and track the project.

Lab Updates

For Update 1, the following changes were made to this lab:

Added notes and updated screenshots highlighting new action image log for exploratory test sessions

Exercises

This hands-on lab includes the following exercises:

Exploratory Testing Improvements

Estimated time to complete this lab: 30 minutes.

Exercise 1: Exploratory Testing Improvements

In this exercise, you will learn about some of the improvements to Microsoft Test Manager2012 that make exploratory testing easier on the software tester.

Log in as Adam. All user passwords are P2ssw0rd.
Launch Microsoft Test Manager from Start | All Programs | Microsoft Visual Studio 2012.

Figure 1

Starting Microsoft Test Manager

Note: Microsoft Test Manager allows testers to work with test plans, author and organize manual test cases, execute test cases, file bugs, and post results back to Team Foundation Server.

Microsoft Test Manager will connect to the team project that was last in use on startup. Select the Home button in the upper-left corner to select a different project.

Figure 2

Location of home button

Click on the Change Project link.

Figure 3

Changing the active project

When you are prompted to connect to a team project, select the VSALM -> FabrikamFiberCollection -> FabrikamFiber node and then select the Connect Now button.When prompted to close all open items, go ahead and do so.

Figure 4

Connecting to a team project

In the Testing Center window, select the Add button to create a new test plan.

Figure 5

Adding a new test plan

Enter “Exploratory Testing” as the name of the new plan and then select the Add button.

Figure 6

Adding a new test plan

Select the Select Plan button to open it.

Figure 7

Opening the new exploratory testing plan

You should now be in the Testing Center and connected to the Exploratory Testing test plan.

Figure 8

Testing Center showing exploratory testing plan

Right-click on the Exploratory Testing test plan node and select the Explore option from the context menu.

Figure 9

Starting exploratory testing

Select the Settings button in the bottom-right corner of test runner window.

Figure 10

Location of test runner settings button

Note that we can modify screenshot settings and select an audio recording device here. Since this virtual machine does not support audio, we will not attempt to make a selection. Select the Escape key to continue.

Figure 11

Viewing current settings

Select the green Start button to start an exploratory testing session.

Figure 12

Starting the test runner for exploratory testing

Launch Internet Explorer and load the Fabrikam Fiber intranet portal by clicking on the FF Intranet Portal link in the favorites bar. You should now see the dashboard page.

Figure 13

Launching the Fabrikam Fiber intranet portal

Select the Tickets menu link of the Fabrikam Fiber intranet portal site to view all the service tickets.

Figure 14

Navigating to Tickets screen

Select one of the service ticket links to view the details.

Figure 15

Selecting a service ticket to view details

Note that the Created By and Assigned To fields currently show appropriate values.

Figure 16

Viewing service ticket details

Select the Edit link near the bottom of the ticket details page (you may need to scroll down).

Figure 17

Editing a service ticket

Note that the Created By property still shows an appropriate value.

Figure 18

Edit page for service ticket

Select the Save button. As expected, Created By and Assigned To properties are still the same as they were before.

Figure 19

Saving ticket details

Select the Delete button to delete the ticket.

Figure 20

Deleting a service ticket

In the Delete confirmation page, note that the Created By and Assigned To properties are now set to None, which is not what we were expecting. In the comments box of the test runner, enter the text “CreatedBy and AssignedTo are blank when viewing Delete confirmation page.” Press the Enter key twice to leave room for a screenshot.

Figure 21

Delete confirmation page showing unexpected values

Select the Add Screenshot button to add a screenshot of the Delete confirmation page to provide some context.

Figure 22

Location of screenshot button

By default, this will allow you to draw a rectangle to define the area that you wish to capture. Hold the left mouse button down and move the mouse until you highlight the important part of the Delete confirmation page.

Figure 23

Selecting the area of the screenshot

Figure 24

Test runner window showing inserted screenshot

Note: You can double-click on the screen capture to edit it in a paint program to provide additional annotation if desired. By default, MS Paint is used, but you can use your tool of choice by configuring this in the settings dialog that you saw at the beginning of this exercise.

Select the Create Bug button to file a new bug.

Figure 25

Creating a new bug

For the title, enter “CreatedBy and AssignedTo are blank when viewing Delete confirmation page” and assign the bug to Julia Ilyiana. Note that your observations, repro steps and diagnostic data are automatically included. Select the Save and Create Test button to finish filing the new bug.

Figure 26

Creating a new bug as the result of exploratory testing

Note: Starting with Update 1, exploratory test sessions now automatically create an image log of all your actions. This helps to better document and reproduce test cases and bugs that are created as a result.

In the New Test Case window, enter a title of “Confirm that AssignedTo and CreatedBy fields appear on Delete confirmation page.”
In the Steps section of the New Test Case window, locate the row that starts with “Click ‘Delete’ link” and add the following text in the Expected Result column:

AssignedTo and CreatedBy fields should have appropriate values when viewing Delete confirmation page

Figure 27

Adding notes to the Expected Result column for a step

Note that the steps section of the test case also has rich text capability. Feel free to play with this new capability.

Figure 28

Test case steps now have rich text capability

Select the Save and Close button.

Figure 29

Save and close the new test case

After the new test case is saved, we are automatically returned to our exploratory testing task and can continue looking for more bugs. Let’s start by clearing out the observations from the previous bug that we just saved. Press Ctrl+A and then the Delete key.

In the Internet Explorer window, select the Dashboard menu link.

Figure 30

Navigating to the dashboard

Select one of the service ticket links to view the details.

Figure 31

Selecting a service ticket to view details

Select the Escalate button (you may need to scroll to the right).

Figure 32

Escalating a service ticket

The result of the attempt to escalate the service ticket is a HTTP 404 server error.

Figure 33

Escalating the service ticket results in an error

Select the Create Bug button to file a new bug.

Figure 34

Creating a new bug

For the title of the bug, enter “Escalate service ticket results in a HTTP 404” and assign it to Julia Ilyiana.

Figure 35

Creating a new bug as the result of exploratory testing

In the Steps To Reproduce section of the new bug, note that there is a link that allows you to easily scope the repro steps. Select the Change Steps link.

Figure 36

Changing the scope of the repro steps

In the Change Steps window, click and drag with the mouse to highlight the steps starting with the click you made on the Dashboard link all the way to the click on the Escalate link. This represents the recent actions taken to reproduce the error we just saw. Click the Select button to continue.

Figure 37

Selecting the repro steps

Note: Your steps may look slightly different from those shown in the screenshots in this lab.

Select the Save and Create Test button.

Figure 38

Creating a new bug as the result of exploratory testing

In the New Test Case window, enter a title of “Ensure that ticket escalation page works” and then select the Save and Close button.

Figure 39

Save and close the new test case

Select the End Testing button in the test runner window.

Figure 40

End the exploratory testing session

In the session summary window for the exploratory test, select the Save and Close button to return to the Plan tab of the Testing Center.

Figure 41

Save and close the exploratory testing session

Note that there are now two formal test cases that are part of the Exploratory Testing suite. By formally capturing these test cases, we can ensure that we test for them in the future. This enables us to use a blend of approaches, both exploratory testing and formal testing, to improve our overall application quality.

Figure 42

Formal test cases were created as part of the exploratory testing session

This lab presented a quick look at some of the improvements made to exploratory testing in Microsoft Test Manager 2012.