What is manual testing?

When some tests cannot be automated or when you are just starting to test a new product, manual testing is the only choice you have to validate the product. In this case, manual testing just consists in executing manually a list of actions and verification.
The only material you need to perform such tests is a "testplan" and labour!

5 minutes to run your first manual test with XStudio

Once you have installed XStudio, it's extremely simple to run some manual tests. Let's have a tour and explain all you need to do. In the following scenario, we will test a basic functionality of a web browser.

Declare your PC and the SUT

Create an agent with the exact name (or the IP Address) of your PC. To know the name of your PC, use the ipconfig /all command on Windows and ifconfig command on Linux.

Create a SUT with the name "My Browser" and version "1.0"

Create a dedicated category for manual tests

Create a category in the test tree with the name "Manual tests"
In the launcher text field, specify "manual.jar" (this will do the association between all tests within this category and the manual launcher)

Create a test

Create a folder "My browser tests" under the "Manual tests" category
Create a test in this folder with the name "basic test" (no need for canonical path since we have no automated implementation)

Create one or several test cases within this test:
- In the "Details" tab, enter a name (i.e. "first test case")
- Do not forget to set the testcases as implemented
- In the "Testplan" tab, add some steps, parameters and checks that describe the test case. This is the most important part of the job. You must describe here all steps involved in the test case

Run the test

In the test tree, select the newly created test (not the test case) and press the "start" button
Check in the Agent tab of the pop up window that your PC is selected by default
Select the "My browser 1.0" in the SUT tree

Select a pre-existing configuration in the Configuration tab (or create one)

Press the Submit button
Some popup dialog boxes will be asking you to execute some operations and/or verify some assertions

When the test is finished, you can control the results in the campaign tree (a new test campaign and campaign session have been automatically created in the campaign tree)
In the content tab, you can select a test, then a test case (in the dynamic sub-tree) and check the complete log of the execution

Creating a manual test campaign

At this stage you know how to individually run an manual test. But how to deal with a complete testsuite?
XStudio provides a very efficient and simple way of managing manual test campaign. For this, two different elements must be distinguished: test campaign and campaign session:

The test campaign defines just a list of tests to be executed
A new campaign session will be created each time the campaign will be performed. It adds to the test campaign notion, the target on which the tests will be performed and how. The "how" is charaterized by some dynamic configurable parameters.