With the recent success of the new folders feature, here's a usage pattern that lots of customers have adopted to handle releases. In essence, this pattern avoids using Templates and instead uses the previous release as an on-the-fly template for the new one:
[EDIT: Screenshots pre-date the big UI update in June 2018]
- Right-click on the folder for the previous release and select Duplicate
- Edit the new folder name to reflect the new release version number
- Edit the new copies of the Scripts to catch up with the latest features in the product; adding new Scripts as required, and deleting any unneeded Scripts
- (optional, depending on how tidy you like your Project view) Right-click the old release folder and select Archive; this puts the old folder in the Project's Archive tab. Note that this is different to archiving a whole Project which you do by right-clicking on the Project's name in the list on the left.
- Within each Script in the new release folder, and when the product is ready for testing, make the first test runs for the release, collecting lots of passes (hopefully) and a few fails (inevitable)
- Start sharing the folder report with stakeholders: from the Project view, right click on the folder name and select View Report. This opens the report in a new window. The contents and verbosity of the report can be configured using the button in the top-right corner, which is also where you can find the Enable Sharing button to get a share link. Alternatively, the whole report is easy to SaveAs because it is a single self-contained HTML document that can be archived as-is in your own systems (file sharing, wiki attachments, emails etc).
- If a new build is coming, create ReTests of the complete Test Runs. Prepare ReTest columns using the prompt when a run is first completed, or by opening the Test Run Details dialog (hover over a Test Run header and click on the Edit icon that appears), sliding the slider to Complete if it's not already, and then clicking "start a retest".
- And repeating step 7 as many times as new builds need re-testing to ship the release.
Duplicate the previous release
Update the tests
Archive the old release
Do the testing
Share the progress
Retest new builds
A ReTest is different to simply pressing "new test run" in that the new column takes the place of the previous run, both visually and in the progress stats. Thus you don't clutter the screen with more and more old test runs (unless you like that!), and the progress bar for the Script (and in turn, the Folder it is part of) can approach 100% pass as the fails get re-tested as working. You can get old runs back on the screen with a right-click on the header of the latest test run.
Ship it!
Any questions, problems or feedback, just email stef@ontestpad.com