We’re very pleased and excited to announce that TestRail 5.5 is now available and will be coming to a cloud instance near you very shortly if it hasn’t already done so! For this dot release we’ve continued our theme of making improvements to the administration area of TestRail, in particular so that large teams can benefit from easier user administration and increased security. While we were doing that, we made a few additional UI enhancements and some quite major scalability changes in the TestRail database which will vastly improve performance for teams with large numbers of test cases and test runs.
I’m also very excited to share that this release contains the addition of a new custom automation_type field, which will enable users of our sister company Ranorex’s Studio automation suite to synchronise tests between the two tools quickly and easily, in addition to reporting back automated test results from Ranorex Studio to TestRail in real time. Keep reading below, to find out more!
for QA and Development Teams
Ranorex Integration
In partnership with our sister organisation Ranorex, this release includes the addition of a new Automation Type custom field which will enable users of the Ranorex Studio automation suite to easily import, export and synchronise tests between the two tools. When executing tests using Ranorex Studio you’ll also be able to see the results of those tests updated in TestRail in realtime. This is an exciting first step for us along the road of tighter integration with Ranorex tools in particular, and better support for automated testing generally – so stay tuned for more in future releases.
GDPR Features
With GDPR implementation looming, we’ve introduced a couple of changes to ensure we’re meeting our obligations in that regard, and providing administrators with the capability to remove personally identifying user information from the system should they receive a request to do so.
Data Processing Agreements
For administrators of hosted TestRail instances, you’ll see a splash page pop-up asking you to read and sign a Data Processing Agreement (DPA). Once the DPA has been signed, you can close the pop-up and continue using TestRail as normal. Non-administrator users of hosted TestRail instances will see a banner warning to inform them that there isn’t a signed DPA in place currently, until such time as an administrator signs the DPA by filling out the splash page. By the time you read this, cloud customers should also have received a separate email containing instructions regarding GDPR and the DPA.
Right to be Forgotten
Historically, we’ve prevented the deletion of users from the TestRail system, providing administrators with the ability to deactivate (set them to inactive) instead. For the purposes of GDPR, this functionality doesn’t hit the mark. However, we still can’t just remove users from the system, since those users are tied to the creation of test cases, test runs, test results and various other entities within TestRail. Removing user records entirely would result in considerable disruption to those entities, so we had to come up with another solution.
Instead, should you need to “forget” a user, administrators can now carry out a “forget user” procedure that obfuscates the users personally identifiable information and sets them to inactive, while preserving that user records association with the various entities within TestRail they may have created or edited during their user history.
Administration and Security Changes
We added a bunch of changes to both make lives easier for administrators, and to help them improve security.
Add User Shortcut Keys
To make life a little easier for administrators of large teams, we added keyboard shortcuts to the Add User and Add Multiple User buttons (“u” and “m” respectively).
Last Active User Session Column and Timestamps
Administrators can now navigate to the Users tab in the Users and Roles area and easily see when they last used TestRail either by observing the last active column, or by drilling down to a specific user and checking the Last Active Date on the Access tab. Please note that we don’t monitor these timestamps for billing purposes – they’re just there to help administrators gauge usage should they need to. If you want to find out more about how we do measure license usage for billing purposes, please review the terms and conditions page for your TestRail version.
Force Password Reset feature
Again from within a specific user tab, administrators can now force a password reset should they suspect or otherwise become aware that an account has been compromised in some way. Clicking the Force Password Reset button will generate an email to the selected user and direct them to the reset password page in order to take the appropriate actions.
User Session Timeout Feature
To further improve security, we provided administrators with the capability to introduce a session timeout on their TestRail instance. On navigating to the Settings > Sessions tab in the administration area, you’ll be presented with several new options:
- Remove the Disable Remember Me Checkbox – so when users close their browser session they have to login again next time
- Set an Idle Session Timeout policy – so that after a certain period of inactivity (defaults or custom), users will be logged out on their next action (after a warning banner)
- Set an Absolute Session Timeout Policy – which logs the user out after a certain time period irrespective of whether they’ve been active or not
Please note that in order to apply options 2, 3 or both – Remember Me must be disabled first.
Test Management Enhancements
It seems like folk have been asking about this one forever. As far back as 2013 in fact! Now, finally…
Send Report as PDF
Yes. You can now send download and send your reports in PDF format. Please, please – hold the applause. It was nothing, really. (Well, actually it was some significant effort for our developers – so three cheers for them!)
Anyway…
This works as you might expect. Run a report and when configuring it, you’ll have the option to send it out as a PDF in addition to, or instead of HTML. When your reports have been generated, you can view the report in the normal fashion, then either download or send it via email as a PDF document, or HTML still.
Please be aware that some of our normal caveats apply when using this feature. Some test reports get pretty wide, and may not display correctly in portrait PDF view. If they don’t, our best advice at this point is to either switch to HTML, which guarantees they will display correctly, or to apply some filters to your report to remove some of the extraneous data.
Add and Next button in Test Case Editor
We felt sad for testers who had to click an extra button any time they just wanted to move onto creating the next test case. So, when you’re in a state of flow, you can avoid reviewing the test case you just created and having to click the Add Test Case button yet again. Now, you can just click the Add & Next button and get straight into designing your next experiment. And still view your previous case if you want to.
Elapsed Time now Supports Milliseconds
To better support teams who rely heavily on their test automation, the Elapsed Time datapoint now supports entry of milliseconds using the 9.999s format. So, if your tests automated get executed quickly, as they should, you can now report the time they actually took without rounding up.
New add_case_field API endpoint
We added a new API endpoint, giving you the ability to create a new custom case field on the fly. You can read more about how to use it on the corresponding API docs page.
Non Functional Improvements
Database scalability
In amongst all the improvements I’ve already mentioned, we also found a way to enhance the core TestRail database, resulting in 8x performance improvements in some areas for teams with large numbers of test cases and test runs.
Cloud infrastructure hardening, resilience and performance improvements
And, we made a whole bunch of improvements to our backend infrastructure. Tweaking areas like how the background task gets run, so that reports get generated more quickly. And ensuring that backups are taken more efficiently and reliably; and generally greasing the wheels so that your hosted TestRail instance availability is better than it ever has been. You’re welcome. (wink)
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Upgrading to TestRail 5.5
Upgrading to TestRail 5.5 is easy and if you benefit from any of the above improvements, we would recommend upgrading. We’ve included all the required details below to get TestRail 5.5 up and running, depending on the edition you use:
- TestRail Cloud – Most accounts of TestRail Cloud already use the new version. Any accounts which don’t already have it can expect the upgrade over the next week or so.
- TestRail Server (licensed) – You’ll shortly (we plan on releasing the server edition after we’ve completed our hosted rollout – in around 1x weeks time) be able to download the latest version or renew your support plan from your customer portal account.
- TestRail Server (trial) – Please contact us to upgrade your download trial.
- New User – Want to try TestRail? Get a free trial.
We hope you’re well pleased with all the work we’ve been doing. If you have any questions or feedback about the new version, please let us know!
Post by Simon Knight, Gurock Product and Community Manager. Follow him on Twitter or LinkedIn.
Cross-Technology | Cross-Device | Cross-Platform
