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Rational TestManager - A Test Management Tool

What is Rational TestManager?

• Rational Testmanager is a testing tool that encompasses all aspects of test analysis from test management to execution to reporting.
• It supports all kinds of testing from pure manual test approaches to various automated paradigms including unit testing, functional regression testing and performance testing.

Who uses Rational TestManager?

TestManager is designed to be used by all members of a project team.

Testers: TestManager automates and simplifies crucial tasks. This lets the testers design all kinds of tests to run on the software.0

Developers: Helps developers keep track of what features have been tested, and ensure no requirement goes untested.

Managers: Testing allows project managers to determine whether the system the team is building matches the design model and to keep track of deadlines.

Rational TestManager Workflow

• Planning tests
• Designing tests
• Implementing tests
• Executing tests
• Evaluating tests

  

1. Planning Tests

The activity of planning tests involves answering the following questions:

• What and Where? – Requirements, visual models, and other test inputs tell you what to test and where to run the tests.
  
  
• Why – Test inputs tell you why you are going to do certain tests. For example, tests may be performed to validate system requirements.
  
  
• When? – Iteration plans tell you when the tests must be run and must pass.
  
  
• Who? – Test plans, iteration plans, or project plans tell you who performs the testing activities.

  

2. Designing Tests

The activity of designing tests answers the question, “How am I going to perform the testing?”

        A complete test design informs readers about what actions need to be taken with the system and what behaviors and characteristics they should expect to observe if the system is functioning properly.

3. Implementing Tests

• The activity of implementing tests involves the design and development of reusable test scripts that implement your test case.
• After you create the implementation, you can associate it with the test case.

4. Executing Tests

The activity of executing your tests involves running the test implementations to ensure that the system functions correctly.

In TestManager, you can run any of the following:

• An individual test script
• One or more test cases
• A suite, which runs any combination of test cases and test scripts across one or more computers and virtual testers.

5. Evaluating Tests

          The activity of evaluating tests involves:

• Determining the validity of the actual test run. Did it complete? Did it fail because preconditions weren’t met?
• Analyzing the test output to determine the result. In performance testing, you look at reports on the generated data to see if the performance is acceptable.
• Looking at aggregate results to check coverage against test plans, test inputs, configurations, and so on. This can also be used to measure test progress and to do trend analysis.

Creating a Rational Administrator Project

Start Rational Administrator by clicking:
Start > Programs > Rational Software > Rational Administrator

Create a new Project: Choose File > New Project

 

Enter  a project name (TestManagerTutorial) and path (C:\TestManagerTutorial)

 

Click okay on the warning window and do not set a password, just click next.

Ensure that Configure Project Now is checked on the summary page.

To configure the test datastore that will be part of your project, click Create… in the Test Assets group.

 

For this Tutorial, MS Access will be sufficient, however for projects involving more than one person, Rational recommends using Sybase SQL Anywhere.

 

Accept the default and close Rational Administrator.

Creating The Test Plan  - Specifying Inputs to Test Inputs

• Rational TestManager can retrieve Requirements from both Microsoft Excel as well as Rational RequisitePro. As implementing requirements through RequisitePro is beyond the scope of this tutorial, we will be using Excel.
• Open up Microsoft Excel and create 4 columns called “Requirement Name”, “Description”, “Status” and “Last Modified” and set the formatting on the last column to a format supporting Data and Time. Fill up the table as shown in the screenshot below.
  
  
• Save this Excel document as TestManagerTutorial_Requirement in the same location as the project (C:\TestManagerTutorial)
  

What is a Test Plan

• A test plan is the method of organizing and creating the test cases in Rational TestManager. A test plan can be created stand-alone, ie without reference to test inputs, or starting with test inputs and creating test cases for each input.
• The advantage of linking test cases and requirements (test inputs) is that we have the ability to report on test progress against the requirements.

Starting Rational TestManager

• Start Rational TestManager by clicking “Start > Programs > Rational Software > Rational TestManager”
• You must log into a Rational Administrator Project to continue. Select the “TestManagerTutorial” Project we created earlier.
  Projects are created with Admin user with a blank password. For this tutorial this will suffice, however on actual projects you will want to create a username and password for each member of the team.
  Just click “OK” to use the Admin username

Creating The Test Plan Structure

• When TestManager opens, click “Plans” on the bottom of left pane.
• Expand the Test Plans folder and right click “Test Plan 1” and rename it to “Classics Online”

• Double click on the Test Plan to open it
• Right click on the default folder to delete it

Creating The Test Plan Structure

• Right click on the Test Plan name and click “Insert Test Case folder”
• Name the folder “Verify Customer Name”, enter a description and click okay

Repeat the previous steps to create the following Test Plan Structure

Connecting to the Excel Spreadsheet

• If Excel is used to document our requirements, we need to establish the test inputs from TestMangager.
• Click Tools > Manage > Test Input Types
• Select Microsoft Excel and click Edit

Click the Sources Tab and Click Insert

Connecting to the Excel Spreadsheet

• In the New Input Source window, type the name Application Requirements
• Click the Connection Data tab and in the Data Path field, click browse, and browse to the Excel Spreadsheet we created earlier.

• Click the “Set Configuration” button and click yes on the Save dialog box that pops up
• Fill the dialog window with the values shown below and press okay

Viewing the Test Inputs

• To view the test inputs, Click View > Test Inputs.
• Click the “+” next to the Application Requirements to view the requirements.

You can right click on a requirement and click properties to view its details