How to Manage Test Cases Easily with Test Case Lab Tool [Hands on Review]

In this article, we will review and explain in detail how to manage test cases with the Test Case Lab tool. Let’s get started. 

Needless to say, none of the software releases are performed without proper Quality Assurance activities in the present times. Different professionals use different approaches on how to keep the quality of their product stable.

Despite the fact that automated testing has become more and more commonly used, still manual checking is important.

There can be a number of different reasons:

• Some parts of the functionality may not be covered by automated tests;
• The other parts are too simple and don’t require all the hassle with automation;
• QA engineer might not be so experienced and skilled to do automation properly.

As a result of the mentioned reasons, the QA team will probably shift to a good old-fashioned approach with test case management.

Manage Test Cases Easily with Test Case Lab Tool

Today we are going to review the new case management tool – TestCaseLab in action.

This tool allows you to handle your test cases, test plans, and test runs in web application and then report cases (if required) to a bug-tracking system. Even though the market has some alternative solutions, among the similar features package TestCaseLab offers nice UI/UX and fresh look on the whole test case management process. Moreover, the platform will visualize your overall progress on test runs.

Let us quickly run through the basic functionality and demonstrate how it works.

To start, you need to sign up first. After filling out the simple form and approving the account creation in the received email, you’ll be able to access your account.

While passing all the instructions in the wizard you’ll have to create your first project and invite team members if required.

Setting up

Within the TestCaseLab system there are two types of roles:

1) Company role

• Company Admin (has full control of the account and projects)
• Company Employee (has no control over the account)

2) Project role

• Project Admin (has full control of the assigned project(s))
• Project Member (may only perform regular activities inside the assigned project(s))

Therefore, you have 2 types of administration panels:

1) Company Admin panel

(Note: Click on any image for an enlarged view)

Here you may:

• Invite new users, modify their roles within the Company or delete them;
• Create new Projects, delete or archive existing ones;
• Manage your Company profile (name, domain, subscription).

2) Settings (Project Admin) panel

Here you may:

• Edit your Project details (Project name and Project key);
• Add members to the Project, delete them, modify their Project roles or invite new users and make them Project members at once;
• Modify Types of test cases of an active Project;
• Set up an integration with your bug-tracking system and active Project. Current support systems: JIRA, Redmine, Pivotal tracker;
• Export existing Project data to CSV file;
• Import your own data with CSV file to Project.

Test Cases

Once everything is set up and you’re done with user invitations, you may start working on test cases.

Creating categories and test cases is such a simple thing to do. Once you have a structured list of the required categories, you may start filling them with test cases.

Available Test case fields:

Normally every test case should have its content. In this tool you’ll have quite a variable list of required fields:

• Name
• Test case key
• Category
• Tags
• Created by
• Last edit by
• Type
• Priority
• Execution
• Test Plans
• Description
• Steps
• Expected results
• Attachment

All the fields are editable and accessible at any period of your activity: Test Cases -> Test Plans -> Test Runs.

You may even check the editing history of any test cases.

The system also has synchronization of simultaneous work of two different users. If other users are editing the same test case, you will get a notification.

Each test case has a unique link that can be copied and provided to other existing users. If a user is included in the active project, the test case will be opened directly.

Advanced search options:

The system has search, sorting, and filtering options. All test cases can be found using a keyword or test case key. When searching, the user may apply a lot of filtering options:

• By Type
• By Priority
• By Execution
• By user
• By Category
• By Tags

After that, search results can be sorted by:

• Created at
• Title
• Last edit at
• Category

Search results will appear in the same section:

Test Plans

When you’re done creating and filling up test cases, it is time to start your first Test Plan. Creating your Test Plans isn’t a complicated activity either. The whole page is similar to the Test Cases page UI. You will just need to define the name and start adding test cases.

Creating your Test Plans isn’t a complicated activity either. The whole page is similar to the Test Cases page UI. You will just need to define the name and start adding test cases.

In the pop-up window, you may browse through your available categories and select the appropriate test cases to be included in the Plan. Or you can even search for them using keywords or different properties. Then simply check the box for every issue you need.

It is really easy to complete your Test Plan: you can select all test cases from a particular category or even a couple of them; you may even select all available test cases.

When filling out a Test Plan with cases, you may still modify or edit them. This means that all changes will be saved to the initial test case and synchronized in all sections (Test Cases, Test Plans, and Test Runs).

If you wish to have a couple similar plans with minor differences, you can easily copy the existing plan and then modify the content of the new plan. In order to open the context menu:

There is no limit on the quantity of test plans or test runs to create, so you can create as many as you need. Your QA team may adapt different testing scenarios, reuse required test cases and customize plans.

Test Runs

When Test Plans are ready, a user can pass to Test Runs.

On this page, simply enter the name of the run and select the test plan, which will be the basis for this particular run (TestPlan’ field may be left empty though).

Created test run will look like this:

It has all the required parameters (creation date, colored statuses and their percentage) that visualize the progress of the particular test run.

Now you or your QA team are ready to perform the testing – simply by opening a recently created object.

According to the previous pages, the interface here is still divided into three functional sections in order to give a user the possibility to navigate easily and modify the content if necessary.

The bar at the top demonstrates testing progress. The right section contains the status buttons, comments section and navigation buttons.

If a user doesn’t select a Test Plan as the basis for this particular test run, it will be created empty. After that, the user can easily fill the run with all the required test cases manually.

In order to complete the test run, users should follow the list case-by-case and apply different statuses to test cases inside of it. Cases may be selected manually, with the “Next” or “Next Not Tested” buttons.

If the integration with the supported bug-tracking system (e.g. Jira) was previously set up, all test cases with ‘Failed’ status will be reported to the linked project directly.

Once reported, the bug will automatically be created with the input data inside the mentioned project.

According to the logic mentioned in the Test Cases part, if another user is editing the same case in the test run, the initial user will have no possibility to edit and the case will be locked.

The test run is considered to be completed when all the test cases inside of it are processed. Again, users may check the status bar which will indicate the success rate of the mentioned test run.

If the particular test run is considered to be failed, QA team simply waits until all (or some) reported bugs are fixed and then the user creates new similar test run on the basis of the same test plan.

QA team can also perform periodic system checks and plan their activities by creating test runs for future dates.

Conclusion

This article was a walk-through of the new TestCaseLab system and its basic features. I hope this detailed review was useful to you.

Overall the system shows quite good performance along with having a great interface and easy user experience. It has most of the required features that test teams need.

The best part is – you can play with this tool for 60 days on a free account. You can sign up for the trial here.

Feel free to let us know if you have any feedback, queries, or any new feature that you’d like to see in the comments section below. We would love to hear from you.