Preconditions for Engineering Test Management

Preconditions and follow-up actions are essentially governance rules for project areas, team areas, timeline, and iterations. You can define preconditions and follow-up actions for individual Engineering Test Management operations, such as saving a test artifact. Preconditions are checked before an operation runs, and follow-up actions are checked afterward. You can configure the preconditions and follow-up actions of an operation differently for each role.

Engineering Test Management teams typically use preconditions and follow-up actions for review and approval, Electronic Signature, saving a test artifact, and test execution. You can assign preconditions and follow-up actions in the Administration web UI or Eclipse client. For more information about configuring preconditions and follow-up actions, see these resources:

The following tables list the preconditions and follow-up actions for Engineering Test Management . For more information on the preconditions and follow-up actions that are related to the Work Items category, see the Save Work Item Operation in the IBM® Engineering Workflow Management preconditions table. For more information, see Operation preconditions and follow-up actions.

Table 1. Preconditions for Engineering Test Management
precondition	Description	Affected operation	Configurable?
Allow test data record selection	Use this precondition to select the test data records when you start a test execution.	Run Test Case	No
Allow test data record selection before execution	Use this precondition to allow test data records to be selected before execution.	Run Test Case	No
Disallow execution of test case execution record if owner is not running it	Use this precondition to prevent test case execution records from running if anyone other than the owner attempts to run the execution record.	Run Test Case	No
Disallow execution of test case execution record, test suite execution record until the associated test plan is approved	Use this precondition to prevent a test case execution record to run until the associated test plan is approved.	Run Test Case and run Test Suite	No
Disallow execution of test case execution record with blocking status	Use this precondition to prevent a test case execution record if the status of the record is blocking.	Run Test Case	No
Disallow execution of a test case if no test script is associated with it	Use this precondition to prevent the execution of a test case if no test script is associated with it.	Run Test Case	No
Disallow execution of test case, test suite execution records without current iteration association	Use this precondition to prevent the execution of the artifact if the current iteration is not associated with it.	Run Test Case and run Test Suite	No
Disallow execution of test case and test suite execution records without necessary associations	Use this precondition to prevent an artifact execution record to run without a required association, such as a test plan, iteration, or test environment.	Run Test Case and run Test Suite	Yes. You can choose which of the associations are required (test plan, iteration, and test environment).
Disallow execution until build specified	Use this precondition to prevent the execution until a Build is specified.	Run Test Case and run Test Suite	No
Disallow execution until test case, test script, and test suite are approved	Use this precondition to prevent the execution until the artifacts are approved.	Run Test Case and run Test Suite	No
Disallow modifications to completed approval groups	Use this precondition to prevent completed approval groups from being modified.	Save Formal Review	No. For more information, see Disallow modifications to completed approval groups precondition.
Disallow modifications to formal review of approved artifacts	Use this precondition to prevent modifications to the Formal Review section of approved artifacts.	Save Formal Review	No
Disallow saving of test plans, test cases, test scripts, test suites, and results with a state assigned to the approved or closed group.	Use this precondition to prevent users from editing and saving certain test artifacts after those artifacts are approved. Note: This precondition does not apply to the Formal Review section.	Save Test Plan, Save Test Case, Save Test Script, Save Test Suite, Save Test Case Result, and Save Test Suite Result	Yes. For more information, see Allowing users to edit approved artifacts.
Disallow saving test cases without the required number of test scripts	Use this precondition to restrict the number of test scripts associated with a test case.	Save Test Case	Yes. You can set the maximum number of test scripts. Specify a positive integer or leave the value empty for the following options: Maximum number of test scripts Maximum number of manual test scripts Maximum number of automated test scripts
Disallow specific users as reviewers and approvers	Use this precondition to Prevent artifact owners and originators from reviewing or approving the test artifacts.	Save Formal Review	Yes. You can choose the Owner, Originator, or both.
Disallow transition to under review until associated work items resolved	Use this precondition to prevent certain artifacts from moving to the Under Review state until all the associated work items are resolved.	Save Test Plan, Save Test Case, and Save Test Suite	No
Do not allow a test case to run on a channel if the test script that is being run contains a keyword that does not have a test script that is associated with that channel	Use this precondition to prevent a test case to run on a channel, if the test script contains a keyword that does not have a test script that is associated with the channel. For more information, see Creating and managing channels.	Run Test Case	No
Do not allow execution of test case execution record until the test case and the associated test plan are approved	Use this precondition to prevent the execution of a test case execution record until the test case and associated test plan are approved.	Run Test Case	No
Electronic signature required for formal review	Use this precondition for a test plan, test case, test suite, test script, execution result, or test suite result that requires an electronic signature to be supplied when you change the status of an approval or review record of a Formal Review.	Save Formal Review	Yes. You can require free-form comments or predefined comments to apply the Electronic Signature. For more information, see Requiring electronic signatures for reviews.
Electronic signature that is required for lock and unlock	Use this precondition to require an Electronic Signature when users lock or unlock certain test artifacts.	Save Test Plan, Save Test Case, Save Test Suite, Save Test Script, Save Test Case Result, and Save Test Suite Result	Yes. You require free-form comments or predefined comments to apply the Electronic Signature. For more information, see Requiring electronic signatures for reviews.
Pending approvals	Use this precondition to prevent transition of artifacts to another state, when reviews or approvals are pending.	Save Test Case, Save Test Case Result, Save Test Plan, Save Test Script, Save Test Suite, and Save Test Suite Result	No
Require an actual result for script steps	Use this precondition to make the Actual Results column of a manual test script mandatory under certain conditions.	Save Test Case Result	Yes. For more information, see Defining a precondition to mandate actual results in a manual test script.
Require defects before failed results reviewed	Use this precondition to change the state of the test case result to Under Review. At least one defect must be associated for failed results before it can be reviewed.	Save Test Case Result	No
Require prior test script, test case, test suite, test case result, and test suite result transition	Use this precondition to prevent test case state group transition until artifacts are transitioned.	Save Test Case and Save Test Plan	Yes. You can choose the transition states (Under Review, Reviewed, Approved, Published, and Closed) of a test case. You can prevent transitioning from one review state to another.
Required approvals	Use this precondition to define the review and approval requirements for workflow state group transitions. If the specified transition rules for transitioning between workflow state groups are not met by the formal reviews of the test artifact, the transition is prevented .	Save Test Case, Save Test Case Result, Save Test Plan, Save Test Script, Save Test Suite, and Save Test Suite Result	Yes. You can add new transition rules by selecting Target State or Group and necessary approval type. Specify the number of required approvers for each role.
Requires a test suite that must be approved before its associated test suite execution records can be created	Use this precondition to allow creation of test suite execution record, only if the test suite is approved.	Save Test Suite Execution Record	No

Table 2. Follow-up actions for
Follow-up action	Description	Affected operation	Configurable
Archive approval groups after a state group transition	Use this action to automatically archive an approval group after a workflow state group transition. Archived approval groups are for record, but no longer useful to satisfy any other constraint.	Save Test Case, Save Test Case Result, Save Test Plan, Save Test Script, Save Test Suite, Save Test Suite Result	No
Auto-assign ownership to creator	Use this action to auto-assign the ownership of the test case to the creator if the owner is not specified.	Save Test Case, Save Test Plan, Save Test Script, Save Test Suite, Save Test Suite Execution Record, Save Test Case Execution Record	No
ReqPro Requirements Snapshot Inclusion	Use this action to include IBM Rational® RequisitePro® Requirement artifacts in test case and test plan snapshots.	Snapshot Test Case and Snapshot Test Plan	No
Test Phase, Test Sizing, TCER and TSER snapshots Inclusion	Use this action to include test phase, test sizing, test case execution record, and test suite execution record in test plan snapshots.	Snapshot Test Plan	No

Precondition configurations

Each individual operation, such as Save Test Case, can have several preconditions that are defined for it. Preconditions are defined as part of a configuration, which includes the operation, the role that can do the operation (who), and the time frame of the operation (when). All the operations in the following image apply to the Everyone role, which is the default, and have no limits on when each operation can be done.

If you want to assign a different role (who) or time frame (when) to a precondition than the default values, you must copy a configuration or create a configuration by clicking the Edit Configuration button.

By default, the configurations that you set in the project area apply for all-time periods. However, you can customize configurations so that they apply only for a specific timeline, iteration, or iteration type. Also, the Show archived time periods icon toggles the display of configurations for timelines or iterations that are archived.

The current iteration determines the preconditions that apply to an artifact. It is not based on the attributes that are specified in the artifact. For example, when the current iteration of the project matches the iteration that is defined in the When field of the configuration, the Disallowed Execution Until Test Case is Approved precondition applies to all the test cases regardless of the iteration set in a TCER for the test case.

Data Migration Administrator role

Administrators can use the Data Migration Administrator role to create data that is exempt from the normal constraints that are enforced by preconditions and follow-up actions. For example, you might need to migrate data into the application by using the Rest API. In that case, you can use the Data Migration Administrator role to bypass the process behavior rules and migrate data that violates the version 4-process constraints. With the Rest API, you can read and write data without using the web interface.

You can combine this role with other roles, but you must place this role in the first position in the list of selected roles, as the next image shows.

For example, if you need to be exempt from preconditions and follow-up actions so that you can upgrade the software, you might take these steps:

Assign the Data Migration Administrator role to the user who is going to upgrade the software.
Move that role to the first position in the list of roles.
Log in as that user and upgrade the software.

After the upgrade, if you want the user to have the same operational constraints as everyone else, remove the Data Migration Administrator role from the user's role list. If you move the role in the priority list, the change might not be effective. In addition, if the role will no longer be used after the upgrade, remove the preconditions and follow-up actions that are configured for the role.