Tool Mentor: Creating a Test Case Using Rational TestManager

Purpose

This tool mentor describes how to use Rational TestManager to create a Test Case.

This section provides links to additional information related to this tool mentor.

Overview

A Test Case answers the question: “What is it that I need to test?” Test Cases provide the foundation of your testing effort. Collectively, they organize the testing criteria:

What to test
How to test
When to test

They contain information pertaining to design, requirement validation, implementation, and configuration.

Use test cases as the basis to validate requirements, which may be based on input from a variety of sources: Use Test Cases in a Rational Rose model, specifications, Rational RequisitePro requirements, marketing collateral, code comments gleaned from code reviews, and change requests.

A Test Case always resides in a test case folder of a test plan.

This tool mentor applies to Windows 98/ME/XP/2000 and NT 4.0 platforms.

Tool Steps

To create a test case, perform the following steps:

[Insert a Test Case](#Insert a Test Case)
[Fill in the Properties of a Test Case](#Fill in the properties for the Test Case)

1. Insert a Test Case

The first part to creating a test case is to insert a test case into TestManager.

From the Planning tab of the Test Asset Workspace, click **File

Open Test Plan**.
Select the appropriate Test Plan.
Select the appropriate Test Case Folder, and right-click Insert Test Case. The New Test Case dialog box displays.
The name of the test case is the only required field. Name your test case according to what it validates, for example: Create Account. At the Name field, input the appropriate name and click OK.

Help icon Refer to the following topics in the TestManager online Help:

Inserting a test case folder into a test plan (Contents: planning tests)
Inserting a test case into a test case folder (Contents: planning tests)

2. Fill in the properties for the Test Case

In addition to assigning a test case name, you can assign other properties. For example, you can assign a test case owner, specify the configurations and iterations associated with the test case, and add pointers to external documents associated with the test case.

Test case properties can include:

A description of the test case - Use this field to explain exactly what system behavior your test case validates.
The design of the test case - These are the step-by-step instructions of how your test case performs the specified test, including how to verify proper behavior.
The owner of the test case - Assign ownership of feature areas through test cases to structure your team.
The configurations associated with the test case - Specify the hardware and software configurations on which the test case needs to be executed to verify proper behavior.
The iterations associated with the test case - By associating a test case with an iteration, you make it part of the acceptance criteria for that iteration. This helps give you insight into when you need to execute your test cases.
The test inputs associated with the test case - Associate test inputs with test cases. Test inputs are the motivators for the test case. A test case may be one of many that verifies the test input; for example, a requirement. Test inputs come from a wide variety of sources: Use Cases in a Rational Rose model, specifications, Rational RequisitePro requirements, marketing collateral, code comments gleaned from code reviews, and change requests.
The external documents associated with the test case - External documents may contain anything from detailed test designs to specifications of data to be used with the implementation of your test case.
The manual and/or automated implementation of the test case - Implement your test case either by automated test scripts, manual script, or both.