MTM > Microsoft Test Manager > First Steps

I will have to setup a test automation framework at my new job and considering the fact that my new company essentially uses the entire Microsoft stack I'm going to see if Microsoft Test Manager (MTM) will suit our purposes.

Long live the Pluralsight courses:

• Structure:
• Test Plan
• Test Suite
• Test Cases
• Test Plan Configuration
• What are you testing?
• How are you testing it?
• Test Plans are now TFS Work Items
• Inside the Test Plan:
• Plan
• Test
• Track
• Organize
• Plan section:
• Contents
• Results
• Properties
• Test Plan Properties (& Run Settings):
• Settings
• Environments
• Assigned Builds
• Test Configurations
• Run Settings:
• Test settings:
• General
• Roles
• Data and Diagnostics (there is a LOT here)
• Summary
• Test environment
• This leads to the 'lab section' of the MTM which is out of scope for the course. TODO: Lab section MTM.
• Builds:
• Information about against which build the tests are ran.
• Configurations:
• Operating System
• Browser etc.
• If multiple configurations are applied to the Test Plan then a single Test Case will be 'created twice' - one for each of the configurations.
• Customizations
• Test Plans are now considered TFS work items, this has all sorts of handy consequences. Such as:
• Work Item
• Fields & States
• History
• TODO: Lean about Work Items.
• For example: make changes to the Work Items states with the help of Windows Powertools.
• Track section:
• Here we can query for Work Items (and therefore also Test Cases etc.)
• MTM Web Interface: with the correct licenses there is a really handy Web Interface in the case you require MTM on machines that don't have MTM installed.
• Plan: Create Test Suites and Test Cases
• Test Suites
• Types:
• Static
• Requirements-based
• Query-based
• Out-of-the-box states:
• In Planning
• In Progress
• Completed
• 
  
• Aside:
• Test Cases are now available as TFS work items
• You can add Test Suites to the Test Plan
• Be they Static, Requirements-based, Query-based, etc.
• You can then add Requirements to the Test Suite
• Doing so will open a window in which to query for TFS requirements
• Test Cases
• Are TFS Work Items with all the accompanying benefits
• Consist of Steps
• Can be assigned to Testers
• Can have their own sets of configurations
• Test Points
• Test Cases x nr. of configurations
• Test results are tied to a Test Point
• LEARNING MOMENT
• In MTM:
• ADD stands for adding something existing
• NEW stands for creating something... new(!)
• END LEARNING MOMENT
• Creating Test Cases:
• Steps
• Summary
• Tested Backlog Items
• Links
• Attachments
• Associated Automation

Aannnnnnnd... it's gone.

If the goal is to fail hard and fail fast we're not doing too badly, because after investing roughly a day into MTM it has become clear that this is currently not an efficient tool for my new company. So we're dropping the course and this line of MTM investigation. Next step: Zephyr for Jira!