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. 

How do you schedule and run tests in Test Director?

In this article we shall see how the tests can be scheduled and run. 

By configuring the conditions the test director can be instructed to postpone the run of the current test till the completion of some other specified tests is over. For example, the test b is scheduled to be run only after the test a finishes with the execution and there is one more test c which is scheduled to run only if the test b passes.

Also, the tests a and b can be scheduled to be executed a day prior to the execution of the test c. the tests and their conditions are displayed by the execution flow in the form of a diagram. 

Steps to schedule tests in test Director

Follow the below mentioned steps to schedule a test run:

1. Firstly, make sure that the test module is in the view mode and if it is  not then first enable it.
2. Second step involves creation of a new test. Click on the execution flow tab in the test lab module. Choose a folder in the test sets tree and click on the ‘new test set’ option. You will get a ‘new test set’ dialog box. Type in the following details:

a)   Test set name

b)   Description

Once you are done click OK and the test set will be added to the test sets tree in the left pane by the test director.

3. Add a test that you want to add to the test set created in the previous step. Using the ‘select tests’ button  to make the test director display the test plan tree in the right pane. Then, type the name of the test to be searched for in the find box in the test plan tree and click find button. Select the searched test and add it to the test set using the ‘add tests to test set’ button.
4. Any number of tests can be added to the test set. To add the tests to the execution flow either simply drag them in to the execution flow area or double click on them.
5. Add conditions using conditions tab. When you will click on the new button a ‘new execution condition’ dialog box will pop up. Select the required test and then passed option. This will instruct the test director to execute the next test only after the successful execution of the previous test. Click OK once done with this and the condition will be added to the run schedule of by the test director in the test dialog box.
6. You can even add a dependency condition to the tests by clicking on the time dependency tab. You will get a field titled ‘run at specified time’, in that specify the date of execution and click OK. Clicking on OK will close the run schedule. The conditions will be displayed by the test director in the execution flow area.
7. Further, if required, some execution condition can also be added to the tests.
8. For rearranging the tests in a hierarchical way, click on the perform layout option. You can then view the dependencies between the tests clearly.  

How the tests are run in Test Director?

We get two options form the test director namely:

a)   Running tests manually and

b)   Automating the tests.

Follow the steps below for the manual execution of a test:

1. Click on the test lab module to display the test lab module.
2. From the test sets select the required test set.
3. From the execution grid select the required test.
4. Clicking on the run will open up a manual runner dialog box.
5. To begin the test run click on the test run. Parameter values dialog box will open up.
6. Assign the parameter values for the test.
7. Click OK and test director will show up the manual runner. The step details dialog box will open up. Perform the execution process step by step.
8. After running all the steps return to the default manual runner display. End the test run by clicking on the end of run button.