Test artifact relationships

This topic describes the relationships between the various test artifacts used in Rational® Quality Manager.

Overview

This section provides an overview of the relationships between the various test artifacts used in Quality Manager. Subsequent sections provide additional details about test plans, test cases, and test execution artifacts.

With Rational Quality Manager, many of the artifacts are all independent entities in the Quality Manager repository You can create relationships between these artifacts, or the artifacts can remain completely independent. For example, you can create test cases and add them to a test plan, but you can also work with test cases in the Quality Manager outside the context of a test plan. A test plan is not required. Likewise, you can attach test scripts to a test case, but test cases do not require test scripts. It is possible to run a test case without a test script.

The following diagram shows the relationships between these test artifacts, and the table that follows provides additional detail. See the Quality Manager glossary for definitions of the artifacts.

RQM relationship model

Table 1. Relationships of test artifacts
Relationship between . . . and Description
test plan test case A test plan can reference multiple test cases, and multiple test plans can reference the same test case.
test plan requirement reference A test plan typically references multiple requirements and multiple test plans can reference the same requirement. In Quality Manager, a requirements is a proxy or reference to an actual requirement in a requirements management tool such as Rational RequisitePro®.
test plan iteration A test plan can contain multiple iterations. An iteration is contained within a test plan and does not live independently of the test plan.
test plan test execution record A test plan can reference multiple test execution records, but a test execution record always references a single test plan or is independent of a test plan.
test case requirement reference A test case typically references a single requirement reference.
test case test execution record A test case can reference multiple test execution records, but a test execution record always references a single test case.
test suite test case A test suite can reference multiple test cases and multiple test suites can reference the same test case.
test case test script A test case can reference multiple test scripts and multiple test cases can reference the same test script.
test script test data A test script can reference one table of test data.
test execution record execution result A test execution record can reference multiple execution results, but an execution result can only be referenced by one test execution record.
execution result defect An execution result can reference multiple defects.
test plan category A test plan can reference multiple categories and multiple test plans can reference the same categories.
test plan test plan section A test plan can contain multiple test plan sections. Sections can be deleted, added, and renamed.
test case category A test case can reference multiple categories and multiple test cases can reference the same categories.
test case test case section A test case can contain multiple test case sections. Sections can be deleted, added, and renamed.

Test plan details

This section provides more details about test plans.

RQM relationship model - test plan details

Test case details

This section provides more details about test cases.

RQM relationship model - test case details

Test execution details

This section provides more details about execution artifacts.

RQM relationship model - test execution details


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