What is a Test Suite

What is a test suite

Test Suite is a collection of scenarios (test cases) defining the scope of testing for a given execution requirement. You can setup Test Suites for a Release, Cycle, Sprint, Regression or other common needs and it serves as a Test Plan in the QA life cycle.

Suites can be defined for different purposes and at different levels of granularity to meet specific needs. Some examples below:

• Suites for recurring system health check such as "Sanity Suite", "Regression Suite" etc. Once you setup a baseline of automation scenarios, it is a good practice to create a Sanity suite and setup recurring runs. Automation scripts can be continually exercised, finding application hotspots. In addition, any application UI or behavior changes can be reconciled quickly in your test logic.
• Suites for change impact or module based testing such as "Flights Regression", "End to End Order to Procurement Suite" etc. Such suites are usually executed on-demand based on application changes and for risk based testing.
• Suites to enable automated testing in Continuous Integration or Build and deployment process. For example, a "Smoke Suite" can be integrated as part of your regular Jenkins or other CI build process.

ACCELQ provides all the flexibility you need in composing the perfect Suite for your needs. Based on your application landscape, exercise judgement in determining the right granularity, composition and execution schedule for different test suites.

Types of Test Suite

accelQ supports 3 different types of test suites depending on how you define the scope:

1. Static suite, where you would create a collection of named scenarios. This suite remains static once defined. Member Scenarios form an ordered list, so the sequence of test execution is always guaranteed. This is the only type of suite where the order of execution is guaranteed.

This type of Test Suite is helpful in situations where there is a specific need to run a selected collection of Scenarios together. Although it is not recommended to design scenarios with inter-dependency, in some situations it may be inevitable. Static Test Suite provides the capability to run multiple Scenarios in sequential order.

2. Filter based suite, where the suite is defined by a set of custom fields filter parameters. You just define a set of rules based on Custom Fields in the accelQ application while the actual list of Scenarios evolves over time. This kind of Test Suite is very appropriate for targeted testing of specific portions of Application Under Test such as Change Impact testing, Risk-Based Testing or module level testing.

3. Requirements based suite, where the suite is created based on the coverage requirement for a set of user stories from requirement tracking tools such as Jira. This is the most common type of Test Suite in an Agile environment. Right after the Sprint planning session, you would create a Test Suite appropriate for the Requirements and use it as a continuous tracker during the life of the Sprint.

As test planning makes progress during the Sprint, various Scenarios are identified for the test execution and tagged with the Requirements they cater to. As this happens, the Test Suite pulls all relevant Scenarios together and compiles the readiness and progress. When such a Test Suite is executed, it is very easy to pinpoint Stories that are particularly lagging in Quality readiness.