Test case review & approvals

Enterprise teams can now implement a test case review and approval process to ensure test cases meet organizational standards. This collaborative process makes it easy for teams to add confidence to the testing process by building a Test Case library that accurately defines your application.

Overview of test case statuses

Test Case Statuses are used to track the progress during the design of a Test Case, indicating whether a test case is being written, needs review, is approved for testing, or is in any other phase of your organization’s workflow. These test case statuses can be customized to meet your needs and approvals can be enabled on a per-project basis.

Test cases that are not approved show an icon of a piece of paper with a green pen next to the title. Approved test cases are ready to be tested.

TestRail 7.3 has three default Test Case statuses that are:

1. Design: This is a Default status, every Test Case has this status once it is created or edited.
2. Review: This status indicates that a Test Case is ready for reviewing and can be assigned to a reviewer for approval.
3. Ready: This is an Approved status, it indicates that a Test Case is ready for testing.

To learn more about reviewing test cases or creating your own Test Cases statuses, please see Reviewing Test Cases.

Customizing test case statuses

You can customize Test Case statuses to fit your team’s unique process.

A TestRail administrator can review the default test case statuses, edit existing statuses or add new statuses as needed. In order to configure statuses, go to Administration > Customizations > Case Statuses. To edit an existing status, click on the name of the status or the pencil icon on the right side of the table.

To create a new Test Case status value:

1. Click on the Add Case Status button.
2. Assign a name to the new status.
3. Set an abbreviation to display in grids and tables. Leave this empty if you want TestRail to use the full name. 
4. Enable This case status is an approved status so that a Test Case with a version in an Approved status appears in test runs that only use approved test cases. 
5. Enable  Default? to mark it as the default status for new and updated cases. The default case status cannot be deleted.

Administrators can also grant permission to approve test cases based on the user roles responsible for reviewing test case changes. To set such role-based permission, go to Administration > Users & Roles > Roles and click on the check box next to Test Case Approval.

Enabling test case review process

Test Case Reviews are an optional setting available for each project. For any project where a review process is required, Administrators can enable Test Case Reviews. To do this, go to Administration > Projects > Edit and check the box next to Enable Test Case Approvals. This will enable statuses for test cases.

By default, any test runs, which use all test cases will not include any test cases without a Ready status. If you wish to create test runs using non-approved cases, you can create a test run using specific cases or a dynamic filter. When applying a filter to a test run’s case selection, the status field will appear in the Selection Filter area of the dialog.

Test case review process

The review process is made up of three steps:

1. Assign a Test Case to a team member for design.
2. Review and collaborate until the Test Case is considered complete.
3. Approve the Test Case, indicating it is ready for testing.

When someone makes a change to a test case, its status will be reverted to default status, such as Design, indicating changes have been made, but not approved. The tester can then assign the test case to a reviewer who can approve the changes, deny changes, and add comments to the test case version.

Assigning test cases to team members and status

Once you identify a test case for design,  you can assign it to a team member, add comments and helpful information, and update the case status all in one window. Choose a Test Case and on the right-side panel, you can see the People & Status section. Click on Change and then update the fields accordingly. Assigning a test to a user will send an email notification letting them know that a test case was assigned to them. Click here to learn how to customize email notifications.

It is also possible to assign and comment on test cases in bulk by selecting multiple test cases and clicking on the Assign To button on top of the cases.

You can also update the status of multiple test cases using the bulk edit screen for test cases. Select multiple test cases within a test suite, then press the Edit button.

Reviewing test cases 

Test Cases can be reviewed for detail and accuracy before testing. When someone makes a change to a test case, its status will be reverted to a default status, such as Design, indicating changes have been made, but not approved. The tester can then assign the test case to a reviewer who can approve the changes, deny changes, and add comments to the test case version. Any test run which uses All Test Cases will only include test cases that are approved.

Managing test case design workloads for team members

To review a Team Member’s test case design workload, click on a project’s TODO tab and then choose the TEST CASES sub-tab. Here, you can track test cases in non-approved states so users can see which test cases need attention, along with a quick view into recent comments on the test case.

Administrators can grant permission to view the workloads of other testers to specific user roles. In order to do this, go to Administration > Users & Roles > Roles and click on the check box next to ToDo Workload for Other Users.