Rally Software Tutorial: Manage QA Activities In Rally

By Sruthy

By Sruthy

Sruthy, with her 10+ years of experience, is a dynamic professional who seamlessly blends her creative soul with technical prowess. With a Technical Degree in Graphics Design and Communications and a Bachelor’s Degree in Electronics and Communication, she brings a unique combination of artistic flair…

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Updated March 7, 2024

This Tutorial Explains What is Rally Software (formerly CA Agile Central)  and How to use it for Software Test Management Activities. Also includes a Comparison of Jira Vs Rally Software:

Rally Software is an enterprise-class platform that is purpose-built for scaling agile development practices. It is acquired by CA Technologies.

Most of the software projects following agile methodology and Rally are one of the popular solutions to manage/track all activities in agile projects. In this article, we will cover how we can perform the different testing activities using Rally.

Rally Software Tutorial

Rally Software Review

Pre-requisite: To use the Rally tool, we should have valid user credentials to log in and access should be provided to your project.

Website: Rally Software

Rally Dashboard And Burndown Charts

In an Agile project, there are sprints and everyday activity is tracked and user stories are assigned to a specific Iteration. We can view the Burndown chart which shows the amount of work left on that sprint and the number of user stories accepted. Based on which we can easily understand the sprint work is on track or not.

Also by using the Iteration Dashboard App on the home page, we can see the Iteration data in several formats like pie charts, burndown.

Rally Burndown Chart:

Rally_Burndown chart

[image source]

How To Create User Stories In Rally

Before we create any test case or related details, we need to have a work product or a requirement. That’s called a user story. This consists of requirement details of a particular functionality with acceptance criteria. By default, user story status is in Defined state, based on the progress of the user story, we can update the status to Progress or Complete or Blocked, etc.

To create a user story: Click on Plan >> User Stories >> then click on “New User Story”

Details to provide for user story: Provide User Story name, description and acceptance criteria, Iteration (means in which Sprint, it needs to be developed/tested), feature, and save the details. So that it creates a user story with a unique id that starts with US. Example: US12345

Rally would assist you with a template on how can we write a good user story.

Template for user story: As a <user type>, I want to <function> so that <benefit>

Create User story

Once the user story is created, we have many other things that can be mapped to it. These are as follows:

  1. Tasks: It can be created using the Tasks Tab. Here we add tasks for Developer, Tester, DB or reviewer, etc., all of them who are required to work on this product and add estimations, owner, and other details to it.
  2. Test Cases: Create test cases using the Test case tab.
  3. Test Run: We can execute the test cases means, add the test result of each test case created under this tab.
  4. Defects: Defects can be created using this tab.
  5. Discussions: Any progress or discussion about the user story can be added here.
  6. Revision History: Every activity performed on this work product is added under History and we can view them here.
  7. Dependencies: Any dependent story can be added here.

Test cases, execution, or defects can be created from user stories or other navigation as well. Details on how we can add and other usages are explained in further sections.

All tabs_User story

How To Create Test Cases In Rally

In general, we create a test case from the Quality Tab.

To create a Test case: Click on Quality Tab >> Test cases >> then click on “New Test Case”.

Details to provide for a Test case: Select the work product i.e. user story which we have described in the above section, Type of test case from the dropdown, Method, priority, Risk, Pre-Condition, Steps, and Save & Close. Each test case is created with a unique id that starts with “TC”.

Likewise, we can create as many test cases as we wanted. Or we can import bulk test cases at a time using Excel add-in, which we will discuss in the coming sections.

Create TestCase

Association of a test case with user stories:

As discussed above, while creating a new test case from Quality Tab, we can search for the work product and choose an existing user story, so that it would associate with that user story. Or open user story and click on Test cases tab and click on Add New button from the toolbar, add details and select Create.

How To Create Defect

Let us see how to create defect & association of defects with test cases/user stories. Generally, any defect can be associated with a defect.

To create a Defect: Select Quality Tab >> Defects >> then click on “New Defect”

Details to provide for a Test case: Defect name/heading, Tags, Description, attachments if any, owner, state, environment, priority, severity, Submitted By, Iteration, etc. and then click on Create.

Apart from the above details, we can also map user story and test case to the defect by User Story/ Test Case search option fields on the page and choose existing User Story and Test Case. We can delete a defect or can associate duplicate defects.

We can also create defects suite, where we can add all existing test cases for easy tracking purposes for release. We can add defect Suite Id for the existing defects to show them in the defect suite.

My defects App can be created using the Add Apps feature on the home page. With this, the tester can know about the non-closed defects that they created. All defects can be viewed and filter by ID, Status, and Created owner, etc.

How To Create A Test Plan In Rally Software

To maintain all Test cases in an organized way and to separate them in specific functionality or feature-wise or different testing cycles, we can create Test folders and move required test cases under it.

To create a folder in Test Plan: Select Quality Tab >> then click on Test Plan

Here, you will see multiple icons to create a folder or creating subfolders, and create new test cases or edit an existing test case, remove the test cases.

Each Test folder has an ID that starts with TF. If you want to move any test case to any folder, click on the edit test case and update the test folder id to the folder where you want to move the required test case. Here you would see all the test cases which are created under a folder and which would not have folder associated. Also for each folder level, you can see the status of the test case results like no. of test cases passed/failed/no run.

We will discuss how we can execute a test case in the next section.

When we open a Test folder, we can view all test cases created under it and we can run all of them at once and update the test status.

TestFolder_status

[image source]

How To Execute A Test Case

The test cases can be executed in two ways. You can search for the test case id and execute or can open the test case from the Test plan. Once you have opened a test case, click on + icon for creating the test case result.

Details to provide for Test case result: Enter build version, Verdict (Blocked/Pass/Fail/Error/Inconclusive) as mandatory fields. Also enter other details like duration, Tester (this would be automatically selected as logged in user name), Test Set (we would discuss the test set in next section), attachments and Notes, and then save.

Based on whether the test result pass/fail, the test case results will show in green/red color.

Limitation: As of this date, we can execute a test case and mark them Pass/Fail at the test case level. If we have a scenario as only one step got failed, we should mark the entire test case as Failed and there is no provision to update each step level status.

Manage Test Set

Let us see how to manage the Test set, link test set, and generate reports in Rally.

The test set is also a collection of test cases like we have in the Test Plan. The difference is that any test set can be associated with iteration. Basically, test sets will be created for tracking Regression testing or to track any other test execution on a particular sprint. As this is similar to a user story, we can have points, planned estimation, state, hours, etc. that can be provided.

To create a Test Set: Select Track >> Iteration Status >> on this page select the “Test Set” option from the New dropdown field.

Details to provide for Test Set: Provide Test set name and click on Add. Any test set is created with a unique id and the name starts with “TS”.

Map test cases to Test Set: Click on the configure icon on the left-hand side of the test set and select “Add existing test cases…” option. It opens a window where you can select/filter the project with test case ids and choose all required test cases by clicking checkboxes and click on the Add button on the window.

Note: In the test case selection window, it will show a limited number of test cases on each page, after you select the test cases and move to the next page make sure to click on the Add button to add the selected test cases otherwise previous selection will be lost.

Once all the test cases are associated, you can expand the test set and add results to each test case or update details to each test case level or multiple test cases at a time by using filter options.

We can reuse the existing test set by making a copy of it and iteration, status, estimation, and other details to it. You can also view the results of the test set like how many test cases under it are passed/failed /no run.

Link test set/Release/Iteration: As described above, the Test set is like a user story, we can add details of Iteration, Release to it. So we can track the execution status of that test set in a particular Sprint/Iteration.

Reports: Choose the Reports tab and select a report or chart to view. You can also Print or Email them.

We can create our customized reports from Reports >> Reports and select the +Add New button.

Select or filter the values as per your requirement and click on the “Run” button to generate your report. We can make use of extended Rally apps by using adding apps option from the Home page and can create charts/reports.

Upload Bulk Test Cases

Let’s get into the detailed steps on how to upload bulk test cases into Rally.

With the above sections, we have understood how we can create a test case from the Add New Case option. However, in a real-time scenario we will have a large number of test cases that need to be created, and adding from the Rally UI is a little cumbersome task. Hence we can utilize the import option with which we can import test cases created in excel.

Recently, Rally has provided the option to import test cases and test steps from excel.

Detailed steps are given below:

Step 1: Navigate to Quality >> Test Cases

Step 2: Select “Actions” >> click on “Import Test Cases…” link

You will get a window where you can see a link called “import template”

Step 3: Click on “import template” and download the excel template and provide data as shown in the image below and save in your hard drive.

Add object Type as “Test Case” and provide the details. Here, only Object Type and Name are only two mandatory fields and remaining other columns we can add if we want to provide those details and import it to Rally.

As we have a provision to import test steps also, for that provide step details with Object Type as “Test Case Step” and provide index as step number and test case line number in Test Case column like line[2] for first test case as shown below to map test steps to a specific test case. Likewise, add as many test cases you want details of and save the data.

Import Test Cases

Step 4: Browse the file from the import window and click on the “Validate” button to check for any errors.

Step 5: Once the validation is successful, a window will appear with the Import button.

Once the import is successful, it will show Import successful message. Close the window.

You can open the Quality >> Test Cases page and verify the new test cases added. Also, you can check by searching the Work Product (User Story) and verify if the test cases are associated with it as per the data provided.

Apart from the above process, we can also install Excel Rally add-in and connect to Rally from the excel and export the test cases to Rally.

Rally Software Pros And Cons

There is a wide range of features available in Rally. Mainly this tool is designed for the agile implemented projects.

Pros:

  • Rally is a powerful Agile tool.
  • A wide range of features is available from Release planning to Testing Reports.
  • It can be used by product owners, management for reports, and tracking the work, Development, and Testing teams.

Cons:

  • Compared with other test management tools like ALM, test case management is not very user friendly.
  • Little inflexible compared to other tools like Jira.
  • Jira vs. Rally comparison.

Comparison Of Jira Vs Rally Software

FeatureRallyJira
PlatformWeb-BasedWeb-Based/Installed
Cost/PriceIt is expensive and may not be worth for a small organization. Multiple price points/Free trial.Licensing is on a monthly basis and it is based on what to use. Multiple price points/Free trial.
LicenseProprietary/Free trialProprietary/Free community licenses for open source and academic projects.
SupportTech support team is available and responsive.Issue linking has enabled teams to trace the issue.
SecurityRally has good authentication and security.Jira provides high availability, performance at scale and advanced security features like encryption at rest
Setup or InstallationSetup is easy.The initial setup is a little complex.
IntegrationYes(REST API)SDK.Java, SDK.NET, SDK.Ruby, SDK.Nodejs
OthersSupports for cross-functional teams and also test management and defect management included.Big community, Multi-language support, 600+ plug-ins and multiple plug-ins available.

Till now we have discussed more of test management related activities in Rally, we also have many other pages in Rally for project management, for example, Time boxes, where we manage Iterations and milestones by selecting the type from the dropdown.

Conclusion

With all the above details, we have understood how we can create user stories, test cases, defects, test sets, importing test cases, and mapping between all of them. This tool is not only used for Test management but also we have Release planning features, and other features as well. There are many other project management tools like Jira, Test Rail, etc.

Rally Software is one of the most popular tools and can be used by a wide range of people and it can track different activities in one place.

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