Continuing the previous tip, I provide sample MS Word document template you may use for bug reporting. What does it have to do with Excel?

- You can use a single Excel document as a "one-stop-shop" container for the bug reports. And this is the idea of today's tip.



By following a simple one-time setup procedure you can embed the document template into your Excel report.

• Select the cell you want to contain the attached document(in the example that's an "Attached Documents" cell).


• In the Excel's Main Menu, select "Insert / Object".


• In the "Object" dialog, select "Create from File" tab.


• Keep "Link to File" option unchecked.


• Click "Browse", select the document in "Browse" dialog, and click "Insert".


• Click "OK" to embed the document.

Afterwards, you can create new copies of a template within the Excel report document as simple as "select template cell - Ctrl-C - select destination cell - Ctrl-V".

Today's tip is for those testers who use standalone Excel-based reports.



The picture above represents a typical "Summary" tab enlisting reported issues, status, short description, etc. Detailed descriptions along with the images are usually stored on a separate tab.

 

Now what you can quickly and easily do is to connect 2 data rows from separate tabs with a hyperlink.

• Select the cell you want to use as a navigation control (in the example that's an "Issue #" cell).


• In the Excel's Main Menu, select "Insert / Hyperlink".


• In the "Edit Hyperlink" dialog, select "Place in This Document" tab.


• Select target tab name (in the example that's "Screenprints" tab).


• Type in the cell reference (in the example that's "A3").


• Click "OK" to save settings.

 PDF Download by Nitro PDF Software is a free add-on for MS Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, and Google Chrome.

It allows taking complete snapshot of a web-page and saving it in PDF format. That is, all text blocks, hyperlinks, and other page elements can still be accessed (copied, searched for, etc.) , while potentially harmful content (like JavaScript) is removed.

By default, PDF files are allowed for uploading/downloading in web-based defect tracking systems. From now on, you have an opportunity to provide even more valuable content in your bug reports.

How to install PDF Download

1. Follow the link.


2. Download and install the add-on.


3. Restart the browser

How to use  

Once you are on the page you want to capture (that is, you have it opened in your browser), simply press the button on toolbar, and select an option in the menu.

The add-on places request to a download server, which captures pages, creates PDF files, and sends them back for download.

One of the things I really like about JIRA is how much linking it allows. (Other tools do this too, but I wanted to namedrop the tool because they do it particularly well.) From a story, I can link related stories, defects, CM tickets, deployment tickets, etc.... Basically whatever ticket type I want. This is great, because over time I've developed some risk heuristics based on the number of links a ticket has:

• If it has a lot of links to other stories, I likely need to test more around business functionality concerns.


• If it has a lot of links to other bugs, I likely need to test more around technical functionality concerns.


• If it has a lot of links to CM tickets, I likely need to test more around deployment and configuration.

I've also developed some similar heuristics around estimating how long work will take based on links, how much documentation there will be to review, etc...

JIRA also shows you how many people have participated in a ticket. That is, it tracks who's "touched" it. I have similar heuristics around that. The more people involved, the longer stuff will take, the more likely there was code integration, etc...

What does the social network of your tickets tell you about your testing?

Today's tip comes from a talk Dave Christianen gave last night at a local Ruby group meetup. When testing a Ruby on Rails application (or really almost any time), make sure you have Exception Notifier turned on. If you test Rails apps, and haven't seen Exception Notifier, check it out.