Is there any plan to add the Watch function to Test Cases?

[Nev Percy]

This is just what came up as I was looking at the vexed issue of manual testers maintaining a library of Regression Test Cases on an increasingly large product with increasingly fast-moving multi-team feature development.

 

People go "Passed, but needs updating", and we have no effective way of managing that and ensuring that the updates get done! 

 

If we got an email when a watched Test Case had such a result filed against it, it could help -- just like getting emails about User Stories or Defects that we're watching.

 

TIA,

--Nev.

[Legacy User]

Hi Nev, I don't know what CA might have planned for Watch functionality but there's already a solution available that I think is better. You can set Notification Rules in your user profile on the Test Case work item type and make them conditional, unlike Watches which tend to create a lot of email chatter. 

 

For example, you could make a notification rule that only fires when a Test Case has a certain verdict, or when a specific field in the test case changes from one value to another. The only caveat is that notification rules are user-specific so each subscriber needs to set up his or her own rule. There's a good help topic for this at Set Up Your Notifications | CA Agile Central Help  if you haven't already checked it out.

 

If you want to propose extending Watches to Test Cases then you can do that at https://ideas.rallydev.com and you can use these community forums to promote your idea. Hope that helps.

[Nev Percy]

Hi Eric, and thanks for the reply.

 

You're quite right about Watch emails involving a world of spam.  I like to keep tabs on 'my babies', which is mostly watching Product Owners moving them from one folder to another...  I love it when someone does get onto fixing them, but I do a lot of filing when that work is actually happening!

 

I had sampled Notification Rules when we first adopted Rally, and largely moved away from them again, but if I can fine tune them -- to a specific Project, and under my Ownership within that -- then they are probably the right tool for the job that caused me to raise this point. 

 

Thanks for the help link also, I'll let you know how I get on. 

--Nev.

[Nev Percy]

Had a little experience with my attempts now, so it's time for an update.

I'm seeing notifications for changes to my Test Cases, and anything related to them -- i.e. Test Case Results on them -- which is great.  But then -- in the My Notifications tool on My Dashboard -- I have to click on the link on the Pass or Fail notification to see whether the record itself in CAAC has anything in the Notes field.  (Notification emails into my Inbox work the same, but with an additional click.)  I don't think I can tune the notifications to specific fields of the related objects, the Test Case Results.

 
And people in our organisation are not accustomed to putting much detail into the Notes, not least because they don't expect anyone to read them.  I'll see whether I can break the Catch-22...

I suspect I'll end up clicking through to inspect the Fails (and of course any occasional Inconclusive) but just let the Passes go without expecting any constructive criticism to have been added.
--Nev.