Creating Manual Tests

Creating Manual Tests With the Manual Test Editor

Adding Existing Manual Tests

Creating Manual Tests From Scripts

First of all, you need to add a new Manual Test project item to your ManualTests collection in the project:

• Right-click the ManualTests project node in the Project Explorer panel and select Add | New Item from the context menu.
• In the ensuing Create Project Item dialog, select the Manual Test item type and specify the name of the manual test to be created and the location where the corresponding file will be stored.
• Click OK in the dialog to create an empty manual test and add it to the project.

TestComplete will add the created manual test to the ManualTests project node and open the test in the Manual Test editor for further editing. Note that the created manual test is empty. It contains only the root test step. Therefore, you have to add the needed test steps and substeps to the test using the editor and to create the needed step hierarchy. For each test step, you need to specify its caption, identifier, description, content type and test instructions.

Below, are general instructions on creating manual tests in the Manual Test editor:

• Plan your manual test. Decide what actions the tester will perform manually to test the application. You need to divide test actions into several test steps and substeps to simplify executing the test. Do not create too complex test steps with long instructions. It is better to divide one complex step into several substeps. The simpler the test steps and substeps are, the better.
• Add the needed test steps to the first level of the test step hierarchy (that is, add the top-level steps). To add a test step to a certain level:
  • Select the step on the needed level in the Test steps list of the Manual Test editor. Note that to add a step to the first level, you can select either the root test step (the node that corresponds to the test in the Test steps list) or one of already created steps on the first level.
  • Click the Add New Step button on the toolbar located above the Test steps list.

    -- or --

    Right-click the step and select New Step from the context menu.

  Note that when you add a new step to a certain level, TestComplete appends the newly created step to the end of the level, after the last step on this level, no matter what step was selected on this level before adding the new step.

• Add substeps to the created steps, if needed (steps of the second level in the hierarchy). To add a substep to a certain test step:
  • In the Test steps list, right-click the step which you want to add the substep to.
  • Select New Substep from the context menu.

  If you need, you can also add substeps to the steps of the second level and so on in the same manner.

• Correct the order of the created steps (if needed). You can do this in the following manner:
  • Select the needed test step in the Test steps list.
  • Use the Move Step Up and Move Step Down buttons of the toolbar located above the Test steps list or the corresponding context menu commands to change the position of the selected step among the other steps of the current level.
  • Use the Outdent Step and Indent Step buttons of the toolbar located above the Test steps list or the corresponding context menu commands to move the selected step to the upper or lower level in the test step hierarchy, respectively.
• For each test step, specify its contents. For this purpose, select a test step in the Test steps list and fill in the edit boxes of the Step contents section on the right of the Manual Test editor:
  • In the Step caption edit box, specify the caption of the selected step. This caption will then be displayed as the name of the step in the Test steps list and in the title of the Step Description dialog when the test is executed.
  • In the ID edit box, specify the identifier of the selected step. This identifier uniquely identifies the step and can be used to distinguish it from other test steps in script routines or keyword tests that handle manual testing events.
  • In the Step description box, specify a brief description of the selected step. This description will be displayed in the Step Description dialog when the test is executed.
  • Specify the content type of the step by selecting the needed value from the Content type combo box. The specified content type defines the format of the step’s instructions. Depending on this setting, you can specify test instructions in different ways:
    • If you choose HTML in the Content type combo box, you need to specify instructions in the HTML format in the Step instructions section of the Manual Test editor. On the Layout page of this section, you can type a text describing test instructions the tester should perform, format the text and insert images into the description using items of the toolbar displayed above the editor.

      The Manual Test editor will automatically create appropriate HTML code for the description specified on the Layout page. You can view and edit the HTML code on the Source page of the Step instructions section.

    • If you choose XML + XSL in the Content type combo box, the instructions for the test step must be specified in the XML format. Type the XML code in the editor on the XML Source page. You can also load an existing XML file by using the toolbar displayed above the editor.

      Also, you need to specify XSL code that will process the step instructions stored in the XML format to display them properly in the Step Description dialog during the test run. You can type the needed XSL code in the code editor on the XSL Source page or load an existing XSL file.

    • If you choose Keyword Test in the Content type combo box, you need to specify a keyword test in the Keyword Test edit box. This keyword test will be run and will perform test actions automatically when the test step is executed. You do not need to specify test instructions to be performed manually if you choose this content type for the test step. Such test steps can be useful if you want to perform automatically some helper actions during your manual test run. See Using Keyword Tests in Manual Tests for more information on this.
  • In the Step notes and comments edit box, you can specify some additional comments and notes for the selected test step.

For more information on working with the Manual Test editor, see Manual Test Editor and Working With the Manual Test Editor.

To add an existing manual test to your project:

• Right-click the ManualTests project node in the Project Explorer panel and select Add | Existing Item from the context menu. This will invoke the standard Open File dialog.

• In the dialog, choose the .tcMT file that contains the manual test you need and click Open.

TestComplete will add a test file reference to your project (the test will be added as a child to the ManualTests project node in the Project Explorer panel) and will display the Manual Test editor window with the opened test. You can then view and modify the test in the editor. See Working With the Manual Test Editor for more information.

Besides creating manual tests in the Manual Test editor, TestComplete also gives you an opportunity to create manual tests programmatically from scripts. This may be needed if descriptions of test steps are stored in external files (for instance, in Microsoft Word documents) and you want to create a manual test relying on the descriptions automatically. TestComplete provides special ManualTestBuilder and ManualTestStep program objects that let you create manual tests, test steps, substeps, specify steps’ properties (the caption, description, instructions, etc.) and save the programmatically created test to a file. For more information on this, see Creating Manual Tests From Scripts.