How to update and mail defects in Test Director?

Normal tracking of the defects requires too much efforts but tracking the repair of defects in a project just requires the periodic updates of the defects.

This can be done directly using either of the two:

1. Defects grid and
2. Defect details dialog box

However, the ability of both the methods to update some fields of the defects depends pretty much on the permission settings given by user. 

In this article we shall discuss how you can update the information of the defects by assigning different defects to different members of the development team, adding a comment and by changing the severity of the defects.

Steps for Updating Defects in test Director

1. Make sure that you have the defects module on display and if it is not do so by clicking on the defects tab.
2. Now, to update the defects directly using the defects grid, go to the defects grid and select the concerned defect that you also added using the ‘add new defects” dialog box. In order to assign the defect to a member, select the name of concerned member from the list by clicking on the ‘assigned to’ box in the defect  records.
3. Next click on the defect details tab and it will open up defect details dialog box for you.
4. In this defect details dialog box, do the following tasks:

a) Select the required severity from the severity box to change the severity level of the defect.

b)  Add a comment to explain the change in severity level if you wish so by clicking on the add comment button in the description menu.

5. To view all the attachments click on the attachments button in the left menu and you will see the list of URL attachments.
6. For viewing the history of the changes made to the defect click on the history button in the left menu. For every change made to the defect the date of the change, new value and name of the person who made the change is displayed by the test director.
7. When you are done with everything click OK to exit this dialog box and save the changes.

Steps to mail defects in Test Director

- The details about a defect can be shared with another user via e – mail. 

- With this, a routine of the inform development  and quality assurance can be developed regarding the defect repair activity.

- A ‘go to defect’ link is included in the test director using which the user can go directly to the concerned defect. 

- Follow the below mentioned steps to mail a defect to the concerned person:

1. First of all display the defects module by clicking on the defects tab.
2. Next select the defect you want to mail and click on the mail defects button. This will open up another dialog box called ‘send mail’ dialog box.
3. In this box you need to enter a valid e – mail address in the ‘To’ field.
4. For including any attachments or history of the defects select attachments and history option from the include box.
5. You can add your own comments under the additional comments.
6. When you are done composing the e – mail click on the send button. You will get a message box. Click ok.
7. The person to whom you have sent the mail can view it from his/ her mail box.

Even a test in the test plan can be associated with a specific defect in the defects grid. Whenever an association is created it can be determined whether the test is to be executed based up on the status of the defect. 

How to add and match defects in Test Director?

Location of the defects and their effective repair forms an inseparable part of the application development and indeed of the test director testing process. Defects can be submitted by almost everyone involved with the development process such as the developers, end users and of course testers. The test director eases all the testing processes and thus defects can be submitted through it and can be tracked until they are appropriately repaired. 

In this article we shall discuss the following two things:

1. Adding defects in the test director and
2. Matching defects in test director

Steps in adding defects in Test Director

Whenever a defect is submitted to the test director it is processed through the following  four stages:

1. New
2. Open
3. Fixed
4. Closed

Addition of the defects to the test director can be carried out at almost any stage of the test process. Below we state the steps that you need to follow in order to add the defects in test director:

1. Open the test director project with which you are concerned and log on to it.
2. Next step involves displaying the defects module by clicking on the defects tab. The defect data will be displayed by the defects grid in a grid where each row is a representation of an individual defect record.
3. Clicking on the add defect button will open up the ‘add defect’ dialog box. The fields displayed in red color are mandatory to be filled up.
4. Fourth step involves describing the defect by providing the following details:

a) Summary: i.e., what problem the defect actually caused.

b) Category

c)  Severity

d) Subject

e) Detected in version

f) Description:

It includes the part of the code where the defect was discovered and 

what problem was actually encountered.

5. Now you need to attach the URL address for the page where the defect was found by clicking on the Attach URL button. Clicking on that button will open up a attach URL dialog box. There type the address of the page and click OK. This URL will be displayed above the description box by the test director.
6. Next run a spell check for the text in the description box. If any errors are found follow the replacement suggestions.
7. Click on the submit button to submit the defect to the test director project.
8. Finally, close the add defect dialog box by clicking on the close button. The defect will be added to the defect grid.

How to match defects in Test Director

- The purpose of matching the defects is to find similar defects so that the duplicate ones can be eliminated from the project. 

-  Every time a new defect is added the list of keywords is stored by the test director from the description and summary fields. 

-  The stored keywords are then used for matching the defects. 

- Articles, coordinate conjunctions, wildcards and Boolean operators are ignored by the test director while matching the two tests. 

- Below mentioned steps are for matching defects in test director:

1. Like for adding the defects this also requires displaying the defects module. Do this by clicking on the defects tab.
2. From the defects grid select the one you want to match. If in case you cannot find the required test search it using the clear filter/ sort button.
3. Now click on the find similar defects button to find similar defects. The results will be displayed in the similar defects dialog box by the test director.The defects are searched based up on percentage of the similarity detected.
4. Finally, click on the close button to close the similar defects dialog box.