Visual Studio Test Professional 2013

On 15th August 1947 India got independence. Today we are celebrating 67th Independence day as proud citizens of India. I'm happy to publish a blog post today after quite a long time on India's special day. So Happy Independence Day 2013 folks. :)

This post is not about Independence day, It is more about Visual Studio Test Professional 2013 the tool I have been using for a long period on test case management and test automation. I would like to share the benefits that I see in this post. This tool provides end-to-end traceability to gain a complete view of the progress, quality of each requirement, tracking test case, tested product backlog items, test cases to business goals, conduct, record, repeat manual tests, manage test environments, communicate measurable requirements using acceptance tests, associated automation. It helps a lot for being Agile. Read more! The Visual Studio Test Professional actually sits on Visual Studio Team Foundation Server.

Now I would like to talk about Visual Studio Team Foundation Server. The TFS, Team Foundation Server will manage your code with state of the art version control, links change to integrated work item tracking, Increases visibility of project with Team Web Access, centralize all roles in a single repository, collaborate in context to increase visibility, reduce hand-off waste, adopt agile techniques to become more effective, reconcile the agile team with your company's project management, continuously monitor the progress of the project, follow your requirements through their complete life cycle, seamlessly integrate test solutions, implement continuous integration to reduce risks in project. Read more! TFS automates and streamlines the software delivery process, as well as provides full traceability and real-time visibility into project status, for all team members, with powerful reporting tools and dashboards. Lab Management Delivering high-quality applications requires thorough testing of application code.

It is important to understand about TFS when we learn about Visual Studio Test Professional which is a boon for testers, at least to me as a tester!. Now coming back to the topic we discussed already is about the Visual Studio Test Professional which offers a full suite of management tools, including Test Manager which has Testing Center and Lab Center.

Testing Center helps us to create Test Plan, Test Suites, Test Cases in the Plan tab. Test tab helps to run, analyze, do exploratory testing, view exploratory test sessions and verify bugs. Track tab helps us to query, assign builds. Organize tab helps organizing the Test Plans, Manages Test Configurations, Test Cases and Shared Steps. Read more!

Visual Studio Test Professional - Testing Center

Lab Center helps to create lab environments on which you run your test professional manual tests. There are two kinds of environments: standard and SCVMM environments. A standard environment can use physical computers or virtual machines, and the virtual machines can run on any virtualization framework. An SCVMM environment uses only virtual machines that are managed by System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM). Microsoft Test professional can be used to set up both kinds of environment. In the case an SCVMM environment, you can stop and start environments, store environments in a library, and create multiple copies o
f them. In both cases, you assign roles to each machine in the environment. For example, typical roles are Web Server and Desktop Client. The role names are used by your test workflow to determine what software and tests to deploy on each machine. Test Professional inserts a test agent on each computer, which enables the test controller to deploy software, run tests, and collect test results. Read more!

Visual Studio Test Professional - Lab Center

Test Runner is something we use under Test tab from Testing Center which helps to run manual tests. If you are someone like me who execute the test case scenarios from Microsoft Excel document, you would be more interested to run it through Microsoft Test Professional's Test Runner. The test resolutions or comments can be provided during your test run and can be saved as test results. Can create bugs on the go by failing the test step. Read more!

Test Runner

The most important feature that I like is performing Exploratory Testing using Microsoft Test manager, starting an exploratory test session, exploring the application, report bugs, makes re-testing easy. Read more! I'm done with my sharing of Visual Studio Test Professional 2013, if possible try at your end of how this tool fits your purpose. Please rely more on http://www.msdn.microsoft.com for more information on this tool. Thank you!
Best Regards,
Shiva Mathivanan

Disclaimer: For now I like to use this Microsoft Tool to a greater extent to explore more on its fullest usage. I too have some limitations in using all of its features regarding automation, due to many reasons. As far as manual testing is considered this is a good tool. However I'm still exploring to find it to be a good automation tool. I have pen down my thoughts and its too personal. Hope it helps newbies to learn at least something. :)