How to: Change the Testing State of Test Suites

When you are ready to run your tests, you can use the states provided by Microsoft Test Manager to show that a suite of tests is now ready to be run. To do this, you can change the state of a test suite in a test plan to In progress. For example, after a requirement or user story is completed and a build of the application is available with this completed requirement or user story, then you can change the state of the test suite for this requirement to In progress.

Note

If a test suite has a state of In planning, no tests will be displayed in the Run Tests View for this test suite.

When you change the state to In progress, the test suite is displayed in the Run Tests activity in Test. The tests in the test suite are set to the ready state. You can now run these tests from the Run Tests activity in Test.

Note

The default state for a test suite in a test plan is In planning.

Use the following procedure to change the state of a test suite in a test plan.

To change the state of a test suite in a test plan

  1. Open Microsoft Test Manager.

    Note

    To display the Microsoft Test Manager window, click Start, and then click All Programs. Point to Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 and then click Microsoft Test Manager 2010.

  2. From the Testing Center, click Plan and then click Contents.

    The Contents pane is displayed.

  3. To change the state of a test suite to the ready state so that the test cases can be run, select the test suite in the test suite hierarchy pane.

  4. Click the drop-down arrow for State in the test suite details header and select from the list of states based on the following table:

    State

    When to use it

    In planning

    If you are not yet ready to run the tests in this test suite.

    In progress

    When you are ready to run the tests in this test suite.

    Completed

    When you have finished running the tests in this test suite and the quality level reached meets your goals.

    Important

    You can change the states of individual tests in the Run Tests activity in Test. For more information about setting the state of individual tests, see How to: Change the State of a Test Case to Closed.

    The changes you have made to the test suite in the test plan are automatically saved. You can now view this test suite in the Run Tests activity.

See Also

Concepts

Defining Your Testing Effort Using Test Plans

Creating a Test Plan Using Requirements or User Stories