User Guide / Test Design

Test Design

Test Plans set the strategy, Test Suites organize the work, and Test Cases are the actual thing someone runs — plus how to get a test case reviewed and signed off before it's trusted.

Test Plans

A Test Plan is the "why and how" for a round of testing — usually tied to a release. It holds:

  • Objectives, entry criteria, and exit criteria — free text describing what needs to be true before testing starts and before it's considered done.
  • Environment — a short description of what you're testing against (staging, a specific build, etc.).
  • Risk notes — anything worth flagging up front.
  • A list of resources (people allocated to this plan) and linked test cases — the actual cases in scope, added the same way requirements are linked to test cases.
  • Optional file attachments, if your test plan also exists as an external document (Word, PDF, etc.) you want kept alongside the in-app record.

A plan moves through DraftActiveCompleted. A project can have several plans at once — there's no one-plan-per-project limit.

Test Suites

Suites are folders for organizing test cases, nested as deep as you need. A suite is either a folder (just for grouping) or a leaf suite that actually holds test cases and carries a type:

Regression Smoke Sanity API UI Performance Security

You can clone or move a whole folder — including everything inside it — and the app blocks you from accidentally moving a folder into its own subtree.

Writing a test case

A test case lives inside a leaf suite and holds:

  • Title, description, and preconditions.
  • Steps — an ordered list of action / expected-result pairs. You can also pull in Reusable Steps from a shared project-level library instead of retyping a common sequence (like "log in as a standard user") in every case.
  • Priority and severity (Low/Medium/High/Critical), an optional freeform category tag, and colored tags for your own grouping.
  • Whether it's manual or automated, and its usability status: Draft Active Deprecated.

Every edit is kept as a numbered version with an optional change summary, so you can see exactly what changed and when. You can also duplicate a test case (steps, tags, and reusable steps come along; comments don't), bulk-update a set of cases at once, and export the list to CSV or Excel.

Reviewing and approving a test case

Alongside that Draft/Active/Deprecated status, every test case also carries a separate review status — one dial tracks whether the case is in use, the other tracks whether someone has signed off on it.

In review Approved or Changes requested
  1. Open the test case and click Submit for Review — no form, it just moves to In review.
  2. A reviewer opens it and clicks Approve, or Request Changes with a short explanation — shown to the author right on the test case, with the reviewer's name and the date.
  3. A case sent back for changes can be edited and resubmitted, going straight back into In review.

The Test Cases list has a Review Status filter and column, so a lead can pull up everything waiting on review without opening each case one by one.

Who can do this: anyone who can edit a test case can submit it for review. Approving or requesting changes is limited to QA Lead, Admin, and Super Admin — the people writing and editing test cases day-to-day can't sign off on their own work.

Next: Test Execution →