We are happy to announce the availability of TestRail 2.7, a new version of our web-based test management tool. The new version introduces the often-requested feature to add and define custom statuses, adds support for multi-select fields for cases, results and defect plugins and features support for PHP 5.4, along with various other new features and enhancements. Please see below for a detailed description of the new improvements.
Custom statuses
So far TestRail included various built-in statuses for test results so that teams could mark tests as passed, failed, blocked etc. In addition to the built-in statuses it’s now also possible to define custom statuses and customize their appearance within TestRail’s user interface (such as the chart colors).
We are happy to finally support custom statuses as it was one of the more often requested features. New statuses can now be defined under Administration > Customizations and would be available for new test results in all projects.
Multi-select custom field type
TestRail supports custom fields (and various custom field types) so you can record additional details for your test cases and for test results. For example, if you would like to store additional configuration details as part of your test cases, you would simply add relevant fields for this. TestRail 2.7 introduces the new multi-select custom field type so you can now select multiple dropdown values for such fields and even use this to tag your test cases. The multi-select custom field type is supported for both test cases and test results and you can also filter for multi-select values in the test case selection filter.
Defect plugin multi-select
Similar to custom fields, TestRail allows you to customize the defect plugin to add your own fields (such as custom fields you have defined in your bug tracking tool) or to customize the integration workflow. If you are implementing such customizations, such as adding an Affects Versions field to the Push Defect dialog for Jira, you can also use the new multi-select custom field type.
Improved test case importing
TestRail allows you to import test cases into the system using a simple XML-based file format. This feature is especially popular with customers looking into migrating their existing test cases from Excel or another test management tool to TestRail and we even have conversion scripts available for this. With TestRail 2.7 you can now also ask TestRail to update existing test cases in your suites when re-importing cases. So far you were only able to append the imported cases to the suite. The new functionality allows you to export your cases, modify them (e.g. using a script) and then update your cases in TestRail via the import.
PHP 5.4 support
We also updated TestRail to work with PHP 5.4 and improved various things and refactored various aspects of the application to optimize it for this new PHP version. As more and more environments and Linux distributions come with PHP 5.4 pre-installed, this is an important step to continue making it as easy as possible to install and configure TestRail on your own server. If you have been holding off installing TestRail because you are already using PHP 5.4, now it’s a good time to get the installation up and running.
New grid columns
TestRail 2.7 also introduces additional columns for the test suite grids. You can now show additional columns to track the Created By/On and Updated By/On fields. This way you can easily identify new or updated cases and easier review changes of your test suites. Another often requested enhancement is the new ability to also show test result custom fields in the grids of the test run pages.
Other improvements
We also added various other improvements and features to TestRail 2.7. For example, new JavaScript hooks make it now easier to customize the Add Test Result dialog and the Push Defect dialog using UI Scripts. TestRail now also warns users when they try to navigate away from the test case edit form when editing/adding cases, so they don’t lose the entered case description by mistake. Other new improvements include the ability to select the blocked/retest status for test steps, better support for background colors in the print views for Google chrome and better support for new OnTime versions. You can view a full list of enhancements and changes in the changelog.
Getting the new version
Existing customers can download the new version from our customer portal. All TestRail Hosted accounts (paid or trial subscriptions) have already been updated to the new version. New users can download our QA management software or create a hosted trial from our website. If you want to update your existing TestRail download trial, please contact us and we will provide you with the necessary details. Please refer to TestRail’s Admin Manual on how to upgrade an existing installation.
