Test Plan vs Test Suite vs Test case
4 answers
Fundamentally Test Plan is a logical collection of Test Cases. Lets say you have some test cases that test the Authentication functionality of a website, then you can group all those Test Cases under an Authentication_Test_Plan.
Test Suite on the other hand is an execution unit such as Functional Test, User Acceptance Testing (UAT), Integration Test or Regression Test. These Test Suite can have any combination of Test Cases which are required for the corresponding Testing phase. So 2 Test Suites can actually have the same or widely different Test Cases.
So Test Plan and Test Suite have very different purposes and the only reason Test Suite is linked to Test Plan is to have a context of the Plan for which the Test Suite is executed. As Test Plan is the umbrella that helps to estimate, track and bill all testing activities so Test Suites and Test Cases need to be associated with a Test Plan.
Hope this answers your questions.
Comments
1 vote
" Fundamentally Test Plan is a logical collection of Test Cases. Lets say you have some test cases that test the Authentication functionality of a website, then you can group all those Test Cases under an Authentication_Test_Plan.
Test Suite on the other hand is an execution unit such as Functional Test, User Acceptance Testing (UAT), Integration Test or Regression Test. "
What if you need to execute all the test cases under the Authentication_Test_Plan. Do you now create another Test suite which includes all the test cases. ?
In that case, does it not make sense to just create a Authentication_Test_Suite only (and not the test plan) to group the Test Cases ??
You can associated Testcase as well Test suite to the Test plan
1. You add Test suite to the test plan if it is planned to be executed as part of test plan
2. You add Test cases to the test plan, if it is planned that all this test cases to be executed for this test plan.
Now there can be cases when Testcases planned for a test plan, are also part of the test suite.
In this case You add only test suite, if you do not bother executing individual testcase but bother about executing the test suite
If you plan to execute the test case individually, add it irrespective of whether it is plan of Test suite or not.
1. You add Test suite to the test plan if it is planned to be executed as part of test plan
2. You add Test cases to the test plan, if it is planned that all this test cases to be executed for this test plan.
Now there can be cases when Testcases planned for a test plan, are also part of the test suite.
In this case You add only test suite, if you do not bother executing individual testcase but bother about executing the test suite
If you plan to execute the test case individually, add it irrespective of whether it is plan of Test suite or not.
Comments
1 vote
Comment, not any answer:
We really need two views:
One that indicates how the test plan was formed (test suite a, and test suite b, plus test cases 1, 2 and 5)
so that I know that all of test suite a and b have been included (without having to check test case by test case).
Another view (maybe "test case list view"?) that will show all of the test cases in the test plan, so that I don't manually add "test case 6" when in fact the test case was already in 'test suite b", or conversely, that I thought test case 6 was included when in fact is wasn't in any of the test suites and it was not individually added to the plan.