Test Hub Enhancements in Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS)

This article will discuss various new and enhanced features with Test hub in Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS). There are many useful features like having traceability with continuous testing, automated test history for branches, test status with Release Management etc.

Test Hub Enhancements

The article will be discussing the following:

• Test Configuration
• Ordering of Tests and Test Suites
• Selecting a build for test
• Kanban cards to view test progress and to navigate to a test artefact
• Enhancements to Web Runner and
• Exploratory Testing.

Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS) gets updated with new and enhanced features every 3 weeks, and today we will be discussing some of the features available with Test hub.

Test Configuration

There is a Configuration tab added in Test which has two default configurations on similar lines as available with the client Microsoft Test Manager 2015. Configurations are useful to find out how the application works with different OS, memory, browsers and even processors. It depends upon the configuration variables. These configurations with the variable values are indicative only. Note that if the actual configuration is not met at the time of execution of test case, there is no error given. It is the tester’s responsibility to follow the configuration.

We can create new configurations, as well as add new configuration variables with Test hub.

We will first add some values to the existing configuration variables. We can create a new variable if required. I am adding the value Windows 10 for OS, and Microsoft Edge as browser.

Let us create a new test configuration by selecting the down going arrow to bring up the following:

The newly created configuration looks as follows. Observe the check box for assigning this configuration to the new test plans.

The configuration can be assigned to a test case, test suite or even a test plan. Right clicking on any artefact will provide an option to assign the configuration. The following figure shows the configuration assigned to a Test Suite.

Once the configuration is set for the test suite, it will be automatically provided for the test cases, and they will start appearing the number of times as there are configurations.

Test case and Test Suite ordering

We can decide the order of the tests irrespective of the type of Test Suite they belong to. We can drag and drop the test cases as per our requirement. There is an Order column available in the list. Once you have set the order, the test cases will be shown accordingly.

The Test Cases can also be ordered using Kanban User Story card.

Even the Test Suites in a Test Plan can be ordered. Previously they were shown in an alphabetical order. You can just drag and drop the Test Suite

View Test Results

We can view the test results from test suite by clicking on the show or hide pane and then selecting the Test Case, Test Suite or Test Results.

The test results now show Plan Id, Plan Name, Suite Id and Suite name along with who ran the test case, what was result, configuration and duration. This extra information will help in traceability.

Enhancements for Web Test Execution (Web Runner)

Just like we have Microsoft Test Runner when using Microsoft Test Manager 2015 (MTM), we get Web Runner from Test hub. Right click on a test case and select Run with Options.

Select a test case and start web runner. Allow pop-ups in order to execute test case from the browser. See test step attachments as shown in the following image.

Every test step can be provided with comment, attachment. Or the status can be set to pass of fail.

We can have additional features like take screenshot, capture user action or take video recording. Note that these are available only with the Chrome browser. There is an extension for Exploratory Testing which is also available with Chrome. You can find more information about it in our Exploratory Testing with Test Hub article.

When we select the option to “capture user actions as image action log” we get the following:

Selecting a Build for a test case

We can select a build for test case with Web Runner execution. Click on the ellipse button for the Build to use by selecting Run with options. We can select the build and continue execution.

Test Progress from Kanban cards

We can add a task or test case directly from a user story or product backlog item. These work items will be automatically linked to the user story. We can further open test suite directly or run test case from this Kanban card. I have already discussed ordering of test case using the Kanban card.

We can directly run the test case, open it and edit, start exploratory testing. We can directly mark the test status as pass or fail as shown in the figure.

We can even add test case, copy a test case from one user story to another by using Ctrl + drag drop, move it to another user story so as to change the link. If we copy the test case from one user story to another, it will have two related user stories.

We can directly open the test suite from the card by using the arrow shown here.

We can even use this Kanban card for configuration of test setting. With this we can decide on which test plan the tests will be created.

Conclusion

In this article, we have discussed various new features and enhancements available with Test hub using Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS).

Author

Gouri Sohoni is a Trainer and Consultant for over two decades. She specializes in Visual Studio - Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) and Team Foundation Server (TFS). She is a Microsoft MVP in VS ALM, MCSD (VS ALM) and has conducted several corporate trainings and consulting assignments. She has also created various products that extend the capability of Team Foundation Server.