Customizable Columns

TestRail 2.5 comes with a new customizable column feature that allows you to add new columns to the grids (such as the test run, suite and to-do pages), so you can show any additional details directly on the overview pages. This allows you to show a list of found defects, test case custom fields or any other detail you and your team wants to highlight. It’s also possible to configure different columns for different projects and views as needed.

Sorting and Grouping

The new version also makes it easy to sort and group test cases and tests directly in the grids. Want to see the tests that took the most time to execute? Or do you want to group your test cases by test type or test status? All this and more is now possible directly in the grids and tables of TestRail.

Case Selection Filter

If you have larger test suites or test plans, but don’t have enough time to execute all tests against a new software build, or if you just want to make sure that no regressions exist in a new version of your software, then executing just a subset of your test case collection is a useful feature. TestRail 2.5 makes this easier by enabling you to select test cases for a new test run or plan via filters. You can just include test cases of a certain type or priority, or filter any other test case attributes (including custom fields) or combination of fields with the new handy test case selection filter.

Redmine, Pivotal Tracker & Lighthouse

We’ve also worked on improved defect tracker integration for the popular Redmine, Pivotal Tracker and Lighthouse project management tools. We now ship defect plugins for those tools with TestRail and you can enable the defect tracker integration either under Administration > Site Settings > Integration (for all projects), or under Administration > Projects (for individual projects).

Rerunning Plans and Test Runs

Many teams have more test cases for a project than they can possibly execute during a single iteration, so concentrating on failed or not-yet-executed tests for new iterations is a good way to ensure that all test cases have been covered at least once for a new software release. TestRail’s new version allows you to select just your failed or untested cases for a new test run or plan, making it easy to ensure that all your cases and failed tests get verified.

Other improvements

TestRail 2.5 also comes with many other enhancements such as an improved administration area, more flexible defect plugin customizations and broader support for image uploading for text fields. The new version also comes with redesigned test run and test plan edit forms, making it easier to select test cases for your runs and listing your plan’s suites in a more compact form. We also improved the way texts wrap in TestRail to make it easier to work with long project, case or suite titles. You can view a full list of enhancements and changes in the changelog.

Getting the new version

Existing customers can download the new version from our customer portal. All TestRail Hosted accounts (paid or trial subscriptions) have already been updated to the new version. New users can download our QA management software or create a hosted trial from our website. If you want to update your existing TestRail download trial, please contact us and we will provide you with the necessary details. Please refer to TestRail’s Admin Manual on how to upgrade an existing installation.

This has been a very exciting year for us here at Gurock Software and we are truly grateful to have worked with such great customers and partners from all over the world this year. We wish everyone happy holidays and a happy and successful new year 2012 and we look forward to working with you again next year.

Please note that we don’t currently have plans to support SmartInspect for Delphi for Mac OS X and other cross platform targets. As the SmartInspect logging library for Delphi makes heavy use of the Windows APIs for performance reasons, we first want to wait on how popular the Delphi cross platform capabilities will become. If Delphi for Mac OS X becomes more popular we will certainly consider supporting this environment as well.

If you are a registered customer you can download the new version from our customer portal. You can also download the updated trial version to try SmartInspect for free. Just let us know in case you have any questions or feedback about the new version.

TestRail 2.0 is also the first release that is based on Gizmo, our new internal web development framework which allows us to rapidly add new features and enhancements to the product in the future. Please see below for detailed descriptions of the new features and for information on how to upgrade your TestRail installation or trial version.

Full Unicode Support

We added full Unicode support to TestRail to make it easier to work with non-Western characters and data. The new version automatically converts existing TestRail databases to Unicode and transparently handles the input and display of non-Western characters. The addition of this feature will allow organizations and teams who regularly work with international customers, team members and sample data to benefit from TestRail.

Test Case History

TestRail 2.0 comes with a new test case history to make it easier to track test case changes. In previous TestRail versions it was difficult to track case changes and improving this situation was a request we often received. So the new test case history allows you to easily track what kind of changes were made to a test case, by whom and when those changes were made.

Active Directory / Single Sign-On

Many organizations are using Windows Active Directory or other systems to implement single sign-on. Single sign-on allows users to use the same user login and password across different systems, making it easier for users to remember their credentials and ultimately improving the overall security as users can choose more secure passwords (they have to remember fewer passwords, after all).

TestRail 2.0 allows you to implement single sign-on against Active Directory and almost any other authentication systems or applications. TestRail supports authentication scripts to build custom integrations and we also provide ready-to-use scripts on our new project website. The authentication integration can also be used to create the initial TestRail user accounts, making it easier for large teams to adopt TestRail.

Custom Priorities & Test Types

While previous TestRail versions already allowed you to customize the priorities and test types by changing the values directly in TestRail’s database, this feature wasn’t easily discoverable nor was it easy to use. So with TestRail 2.0 we introduce the option to directly modify and extend the priority and test type fields for test cases on the Custom Fields page in the Administration area of the application.

Improved Test Navigation

Improving the test navigation and making it easy to jump to previous and next tests is a small feature compared to other enhancement in this list. But because this enhancement was often requested we are happy to finally have this feature in TestRail. We added new Next and Previous links to the toolbar on TestRail’s test pages, allowing you to easily jump to other tests on your todo list or for the current test run. Depending on what you are currently working on (your todos or a test run), TestRail automatically adjusts the links to the right tests.

Added Flexibility

One of our goals with TestRail is to make the application as flexible as possible to allow for a broad range of usage scenarios, but without impacting the ease of use of the application. So we added a few enhancements to TestRail 2.0 to make the application more flexible in specific areas. For example, new description fields for test plans and milestones allow you to add custom content to milestone and test plan pages. It’s now also possible to add custom text to TestRail’s login page and the user interface can be translated to other languages.

Other enhancements include new fields in CSV and Excel export files for test runs. TestRail 2.0 adds summarized fields with information about elapsed test times and found defects to the CSV and Excel exports to make it easier to build custom reports.

UI Enhancements

We also worked on many smaller enhancements of TestRail’s user interface. For example, we added a new sticky sidebar to test run and suite pages to make it easier to navigate larger pages. We also improved the display of toolbars and entity IDs and added improvements to TestRail’s search functionality (e.g. custom fields are now also searched).

We also worked on and improved the forms to create and edit custom fields. The previous forms to create custom fields were somewhat confusing, especially in regards to assigning projects and specifying project options. TestRail 2.0 comes with a newly designed custom field form to make it easier to create and edit fields.

Gizmo Web Framework

TestRail 2.0 is also built on a completely new web development framework we internally call Gizmo. Gizmo was specifically designed to build high-performance and rock-solid web application such as TestRail and allows us to rapidly add new features to future TestRail versions. Having our own lightweight and flexible MVC-based web development framework is a big competitive advantage for us and TestRail 2.0 already benefits from this by providing improved performance, security and easier deployment.

Getting the new version

Existing customers can download the new version from our customer portal. New users can download TestRail or request a hosted trial on our website. If you want to update your existing TestRail trial (download or hosted), please contact us and we will provide you with all the necessary details.

To view the complete list of changes for TestRail 2.0, please see our announcement forum. Please refer to TestRail’s Admin Manual on how to upgrade an existing installation.

Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Technical Session #32
10:00am – 10:45am PDT (UTC-7)
(this is 19:00 in CEST for European attendees)

Practical Software Test Management with TestRail
Most software teams already use bug tracking tools and project management software to track and organize their development efforts. But what about the software tests? Organizing test cases, tracking the testing progress and managing testing resources is critical to ensure great release quality. This presentation introduces the Web-based test management software, TestRail, and explains how software teams benefit from adopting such a tool.

I invite you to attend this session if you are new to test management or TestRail and would like to learn more about this topic. Please register for the conference (free) in order to watch this session. Enjoy!

Gurock Software Jobs

Ideally, students qualifying for the open positions are located in Germany as this makes it easier to coordinate the projects. But we might also consider exceptional applications from other regions and countries. If this sounds interesting to you, we would love to hear from you. If you know someone else who would be a good fit for the positions, please forward this posting.

A small selection of user groups we sponsored in the past

Additionally, if you want to present and demonstrate SmartInspect in front of at least 15 attendees at a user group meeting or similar event, please contact us and we are happy to provide you with an extra SmartInspect license.

Learn more: SmartInspect licenses for user groups

Open source teams already use various tools to manage their software development process such as bug trackers, project management tools and source control. Teams can also benefit from a test management software to manage, organize and execute their tests. TestRail allows contributors to participate in projects’ software testing efforts and even enables non-technical users to contribute to projects.

We decided to make free licenses of our test management software available to open source teams as a way to give back to the community. Gurock Software is using various open source projects to power the infrastructure and development process so this makes a lot of sense for us. Interested open source teams can contact us or learn more about the offer on the dedicated web page.

Learn more: Free TestRail licenses for open source projects

Additionally, we wanted to separate DelphiFeeds.com and our blog from our website for performance and security reasons, so we also put those sites on different machines. The good news is that our websites should become a lot faster because of the server move, especially DelphiFeeds.com. If you notice any problems, we would appreciate a quick email.