Creating Manual Test Cases

You can create manual test cases to test your application by using Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate or Visual Studio Test Professional. In a manual test case, you can document all the required test steps for a specific scenario and any other information that you must have to run the manual test. This might include attaching files to the manual test case. You must add your manual test cases to a test plan to be able to run them using Test Runner. By adding your manual test cases to a plan you can save the results every time that you run your test.

Note

To add manual test cases into your test plan, you must use Microsoft Test Manager. A test case is a work item; therefore it can also be viewed and edited like any other work item from Microsoft Visual Studio 2010. However, to edit the test steps, you must use Microsoft Test Manager.

Tasks

Use the following topics to help you create manual test cases:

Tasks	Associated Topics
Creating a Manual Test Case: You can create a manual test case with both action and validation test steps using Microsoft Test Manager. You can also add test steps by copying and pasting from Microsoft Excel and Microsoft Word. In addition, you can add parameters to a manual test case to run the test multiple times with different data.	How to: Create a Manual Test Case How to: Add Test Steps to a Manual Test Case from a Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Word Document How to: Add Parameters to a Manual Test Case To Run Multiple Times with Different Data
Speed Up Manual Test Case Creation: You can create a copy of an existing manual test case as a starting point to create another test case. You can create a test case from Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Word. You can copy and paste test steps from other test cases. Or you can use actions that you record when you run a test to create a test case.	How to: Create a Copy of a Manual Test Case How to: Add Test Steps to a Manual Test Case from a Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Word Document How to: Use Recorded Actions to Create Test Cases
Reduce Maintenance by Sharing Test Steps: You can share test steps between manual test cases. For example, if each test case has to log on to the application under test, you can create shared steps to perform these actions and add it to each test case. In addition, you can add parameters to your shared steps to use them in test cases where you want to run the test multiple times with different data.	How to: Share Common Test Case Steps Using Shared Steps How to: Create a Copy of Shared Steps How to: Add Parameters to Shared Steps
Remove a Test Case That Is No Longer Required: If a test case is no longer required to test your application, then you can change the state of the test case to closed.	How to: Change the State of a Test Case to Closed
Update Multiple Test Cases at the Same Time: If you want to update the same field for multiple test cases, you can select the test cases using Visual Studio and then perform a bulk update of the fields in multiple test cases using Microsoft Excel. For example, you might want to change the iteration for a group of test cases.	Modify Many Work Items at a Time
Customize a Test Case Work Item Type: If the Test Case work item type that is provided in your team project does not meet your needs, you can create your own or customize one of the provided types.	Create a Work Item Type Add and Customize a Type of Work Item

Related Scenarios

Running Manual Tests Using Test Runner

You can run the manual test cases that you have created and record the results.

How to: Search for Test Cases from Microsoft Test Manager

To find specific test cases, you can search for them.

Organizing Test Cases Using Test Suites

You can organize your test cases into test suites. This makes it easier to find test cases and you can also run all the tests in a test suite.

External Resources

Videos

Visual Studio Developer Center: How Do I Manage Test Cases with Visual Studio 2010

Hands on lab

MSDN Virtual Lab: Introduction to Test Case Management in Visual Studio 2010 with Microsoft Test and Lab Manager

MSDN Virtual Lab: Introduction to Test Planning with Microsoft Test Manager 2010

MSDN Virtual Lab: Authoring and Running Manual Tests in Visual Studio 2010 using Microsoft Test and Lab Manager

MSDN Virtual Lab: Introduction to Quality Tracking with Visual Studio 2010

MSDN Virtual Lab: Introduction to Exploratory Testing with Microsoft Test Manager 2010

MSDN Virtual Lab: Introduction to Platform Testing with Microsoft Test Manager 2010

Forums

Testing with Visual Studio Test Manager (MTM)

See Also

Concepts

Creating and Managing Tests