Using Aras to Manage Aras Upgrade Planning, Test Plans, Test Records

Hi Bryan!

Thanks for your interest in this idea! It´s maybe something to discuss in the upcoming TechSummit?

Using Innovator to organize Innovator upgrades is an unexpected but great idea! What building technique or application would fit the purpose best?

• Requirements Engineering?

• Custom application?

• ??

I assume this topic is related to manual test cases and not TAF. But of course, TAF users would probably also love to have a set of common test cases.

In general, the tool should be easy to use for the people who have to write the tests.

The official guidelines describe quite well how to organize the test plan. But from my POV, the guide doesn’t contain enough “realistic” examples. And it’s a bit over the top that each step starts with “A. Install Aras Innovator.” [emoticon:0f36700dfeb3494fa10d47dd9e1f90a1]
In my upgrades, the team always showed more than enough common sense to deal with an "imperfect" test plan.

So far I used MS Word, the individual steps looked something like this:

My document contains general tests and specific tests for PE, MPP, code tree mods, custom stuff, etc.

Word is not my favorite format for a test plan. I haven’t done an upgrade in a while.. I wrote these test cases long before a test plan was even a requirement at all. Today I would also include the names of relevant Methods, better (more detailed) description, better English, better images,...

I know some folks out there have created test management applications in Innovator. I'm unsure whether they use their solutions to manage Innovator test cases or just product tests, though.

[emoticon:4ec4571d60f54e50910d7318d3f96ed7] Disclaimer: I haven't been personally involved in an official upgrade project in 10-ish years. If I make a statement that's inconsistent with your experience and/or the instructions of the upgrade team - I may be wrong. Always defer to Aras Support and the upgrade team.

That being said, I'm gonna brainstorm.[emoticon:33306c418930400bac28808410f8ac8b]

If I think it through "out loud", there are a couple of benefits:

• Managing the test versions in Innovator sounds much easier than wrangling various Word docs with conflicting information.
• Using Innovator instead of a 3rd party tool means you don't have to invest budget or train folks on another system - you're using what you already have and know.

As for potential pitfalls:

• You'd likely want to ensure production (or a specific instance) is your single source of truth for test plans - not the instance the QA user is testing - for two reasons.
  • During upgrades, you often test with a snapshot of your production data, not the latest data. If you need to update your test plans during the upgrade project, those data updates will not be reflected in the test environment.
  • If your test management solution tracks the test plans and the execution results for a specific upgrade pass, you probably want that data stored in an instance that persists - not the test instance that will be discarded in the next pass.

Regarding the idea of a shared test library:

Seems like if the structure was somewhat standardized, we could build a library of tests to share as a community, like this post suggested  

I think it would be awesome if folks were willing to share some of their test cases to inspire others. The viability of a project like this would depend on a few factors:

• Test case overlap (or lack of): Companies tailor the platform and standard applications in many ways to fit their business needs. If you look at the test cases from companies in different industries (ex: automotive, biotech, oil & gas, banking, heavy industries, high tech, etc.), how much do they have in common? I don't know the answer, but maybe some patterns would arise if enough folks contributed.
• Test data: Test cases often reference items specific to a company and can't be shared (like Angela's example). The group's standard template would need an easy way to redact or obfuscate data while still preserving enough context to serve as a helpful example for others.
• Legal stuff: How much are folks allowed to share publicly, and do their company's approval hurdles outweigh the benefit of sharing?

I'm happy to support a project like this if there is interest, and it would improve the upgrade experience. Alternatively, if there are a few passionate folks but not enough buy-in for a library, the topic might be a neat guest blog subject.