July 6th, 2017 by Adam Sandman
One of the questions we get asked a lot by new users of SpiraTest is:
What is the best way to assign test cases to my users so that they can do their testing?
This article discusses the different options and provides the best solutions for your situation.
Firstly, there are three ways to assign test cases to a tester:
- You can assign the test cases directly to the tester by setting the 'Owner' field of the test case
- You can group the test cases into a test set and assign the entire test set to the tester using the 'Owner' field of the test set
- You can group the test cases into a test set and set the 'Owner' field of the individual test cases in the test set.
Each of these options is designed for a different situation, which I will discuss next!
Option 1 - Assign the Test Case using the Owner Field
The ability to directly assign test cases to a tester by means of the 'Owner' field is designed for use in smaller SpiraTest projects, where you don't want the overhead of creating test sets to manage a smaller number of testers and test cases. In this mode, you don't create test sets, simply organize the test cases by folder and then directly assign the test cases to the tester:
We provided this option so that smaller teams would not be forced to create test sets and have the extra overhead of managing them. This was based on our experience using some other older tools that were not so flexible and required test sets/suites for all sizes of project.
This option can also be useful in cases where you don't assign the test cases upfront, but simply let testers choose from a "pile" of available test cases and run them based on their availability.
When you assign individual test cases to a tester, it appears on their 'My Page' in the 'My Assigned Test Cases' page, it also emails them a notification:
Option 2 - Assign Test Cases using the Test Set Owner Field
For moderate projects with 200+ test cases and more than a handful of testers, we'd recommend not assigning the test cases directly, but instead creating test sets, and then assigning the entire set of test cases to the tester by using its Owner field:
When you assign the entire test set to a tester, it appears on their 'My Page' in the 'My Assigned Test Sets' page, it also emails them a notification:
Clicking on the Execute button will launch the testing wizard. They will be able to execute any of the test cases in the set in any order and once they have completed all of the test cases in the set, it will mark the Set as Completed.
This is a good option also when you want to be able to assign the same test cases to multiple testers to run on different environments. For example, you can create a test set to test against Firefox, put in 200 test cases and assign to Fred. Then clone the test set, change the web browser to Chrome and then assign to Sarah.
Option 3 - Assign Test Cases using the Test Cases Owner Field inside the Test Set
This final option is designed to address a very specific need - how do you test an integrated business process that involves multiple actors. For example, you are testing a new SAP implementation and you need to test:
- Sarah creates a new Purchase Request (PR) in SAP
- Alan approves the new PR and creates a Purchase Order (PO)
- Kevin working for the vendor receives the PO, ships the goods and sends an Invoice.
- Sarah receives the goods and invoice and updates the status.
- Bill in AP, sees the open invoice and received goods in SAP and remits the funds
In such as scenario you would need to have a test set with separate test cases for each of these items. You would then assign a unique tester to each of these test cases by setting the Owner field appropriately:
| Test Case | Position | Owner |
| creates a new Purchase Request (PR) in SAP | 1 | Sarah |
| approves the new PR and creates a Purchase Order (PO) | 2 | Alan |
| receives the, ships the goods and sends an Invoice. | 3 | Kevin |
| receives the goods and invoice and updates the status. | 4 | Sarah |
| received goods in SAP and remits the funds | 5 | Bill |
So when you set the "Owner" field on individual test cases in a test set:
You are basically building such a business process test. Each of the testers will only be allowed to test their assigned part of the process, and the system will guide the testers to complete their section so that the next person can proceed.
We do not recommend using the Owner field on the test cases within a test set unless you are performing an integrated process test.