Ease of use has always been a key focus when we design a feature for TestCollab, and what could be better than the ability to reuse what you already have in your project?

Consider a scenario where your team has spent time and effort creating test plans that work perfectly for an execution or release cycle, and you need the same test plan to be used across multiple cycles with either no or very few modifications. In this article, we will discuss different approaches to reusing your test plans across cycles.

Create a test plan folder that will hold test plans as templates for an execution cycle. While creating test plans, make sure the correct folder is selected, values for default and custom fields are set to match the execution cycle requirements, configurations are added (if needed), and testers are selected as assignees.

​

While starting a new release cycle, the test plan template folder can be duplicated. TestCollab ensures that the entire hierarchy of test plans is copied. You can then start using the test plans in the copied folder after making the changes that are specific to that cycle, like changes in titles, start and end dates, and any other values. That’s it! You are now off to the races.

Unlike the above approach, if you have only a single test plan that needs to be reused, then using the duplicate action for the test plan would serve your purpose.

A test plan, at its core, is a set of test cases that need to be assigned to the testers for execution. You can have the same set of test cases often filtered based on criteria that seldom changes across execution cycles. For example, you can have them filtered by suites, tags, custom fields, or even requirements (e.g., ‘Tags’ = ‘Regression’, ‘Component’ = ‘Checkout’).

✨ A quick tip here would be to have your test case filter saved once it is tested for its correctness. These saved filters come in handy when you want the same test cases to be added to future test plans.

Once you have your test cases shortlisted, hit the ‘Create test plan’ button and you are ready to go again!

You may not need a new test plan every time, just because you only want the test cases that failed or were skipped during the previous run to be re-executed. Creating a new Run by either cherry-picking your test cases from the test plan or based on their status during the previous run in the test plan, can make those test cases available for re-execution by either their original assignee or a new assignee.

To know how to define configurations that allow executing the same set of test cases across different platforms, environments, etc., please refer to https://help.testcollab.com/en/articles/4676637-test-plan-configurations

Details on how to add one or more test cases to an existing test plan are available at https://help.testcollab.com/en/articles/5233868-adding-and-removing-test-cases-from-test-plan

​