ManualTest/en

Introduction

Manual test steps are inserted into a test case or test plan for activities which cannot be automated or for which automation is not possible due to cost, complexity or general verifiability. They can also be used during a transition period while converting from manual testing to partial automatic testing to full automatic testing.

Manual tests can either be created programatically (or graphically, by placing manual test steps into an activity diagram), or by importing existing test specifications from word, excel, cvs or other documents.

When executed, a manual test step opens the "Manual Test Wizard", which leads the tester through a question-answer interaction. The questions and answers being defined as input parameters to the individual steps.

Defining Manual Tests by Placing Steps (Programatic Definition)

Create a new compund action and place manual test steps into it. It is recommended to wrap each individual manual test step (those which ask for the user to confirm the test) into separate compound actions. This makes it easier to later replace the manual action by a full automatic action, in case you ever want to migrate towards partial or fully automatic testing. (i.e. you will only have to change the internal of that compund instead of looking for all places where that manual test step is used).

Predefined Blocks for Manual Test Steps

You'll find a number of predefined manual test actions in the library. Also, the treeview's toolbar offers quick menu entries to create the most common.

Defining your own GUI in a Manual Test Step

It is possible to define additional custom manual test steps, which can define completely different user interfaces. This is useful, if you want to present additional information (measurement values, screen shots, camera pictures etc.) in the manual test wizard later.

A few examples are found in the library; especially one which presents an image (as when you want to show a schematic of where to place a probe or where to read a measurement value).

Example Session

Please take a look at the tutorial or execute one of the examples in the manual test library.

Importing Manual Tests from Existing Specs

Expecco includes an importer for manual test specifications written as Microsoft Word, OpenOffice or Excel document.

Although certain parameters can be configured for the import format, the document has to conform to some broad layout, in order for the importer to recognize test steps, subactions, info texts etc.

Most often, such specs are imported from Excel, and the individual columns of the sheet define where a new testcase starts, and what the individual sub-steps are. A typical format which is easy to import is defined as:

• column1 - if non empty: defines the name of a test case and the start for sub steps.
• column2 - (if column1 is empty): defines the name of a step inside the test case (test step)
• column3 - any prerequisites as text; this is to be shown to the user
• column4 - a question to be asked; also shown to the user
• column5 - the expected result; also shown to the user

A similar regular scheme can be defined when importing a Word or OpenOffice document; here paragraph levels define where test cases or test steps start.

Running Manual Tests

Manual tests are executed the same way as regular automated tests. However, whenever a manual test step is executed, the Manual Test Wizard pops up and asks the user for confirmation. You can mix and match manual test steps with any other regular action steps in any diagram or test plan.

You may also later replace manual test actions with fully automated test actions.

Interacting with the Manual Test Wizard

See the tutorial for detailed instructions.

See Also

Manual Test Tutorial

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