{"id":66589,"date":"2016-08-02T16:34:27","date_gmt":"2016-08-02T16:34:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.simple-talk.com\/?p=66589"},"modified":"2021-06-03T16:47:08","modified_gmt":"2021-06-03T16:47:08","slug":"exploratory-testing-chrome-plugin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.red-gate.com\/simple-talk\/development\/dotnet-development\/exploratory-testing-chrome-plugin\/","title":{"rendered":"The Exploratory Testing Chrome Plugin"},"content":{"rendered":"

Exploratory Testing is a hands-on approach in which testers are involved in doing as little planning as possible for the maximum of testing. As Agile techniques evolve and DevOps becomes more common, tests are being done by a wider range of stakeholders including managers, developers and testers. With more people getting involved with testing, the old specialist tools are becoming less appropriate because they require specialist knowledge and skills in the mechanics of issue-reporting. There is room in application development for a tool that doesn\u2019t require extensive training and which helps the agile team to increase the productivity of test-runs and bug-hunts in a way that makes it more enjoyable for the participants. The Exploratory Testing tool, which is a Chrome plugin from Microsoft, attempts to provide solution for this requirement.<\/p>\n

Installation from Marketplace<\/h2>\n

You can install the Exploratory Testing tool from Visual Studio Marketplace<\/a> and the Chrome Web Store<\/a>. You will need to open the marketplace in Chrome<\/strong> and use the \u2018exploratory<\/em>\u2019 search term under the \u2018Visual Studio Team Services\u2019<\/em> product.<\/p>\n

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Select the \u2018Exploratory Testing\u2019<\/em> item and click on Install<\/strong> to install the tool.<\/p>\n

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Connect to TFS<\/h2>\n

The Exploratory Testing tool supports two different modes; \u2018Connected\u2019 and \u2019Standalone\u2019. When you are in \u2018connected\u2019 mode, the tool will connect to Team Foundation Server (TFS) or Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS) and the work-items are created directly in TFS\/VSTS. In this article, we will be exploring the connected mode and showing how we can log the bugs we find, and create test cases using the tool.<\/p>\n

To put the tool into \u2018connected\u2019 mode, click on the Exploratory Testing plugin icon in Chrome to invoke the options. Click on the settings ( ) icon, if not selected. Select the Connected(TFS\/VSTS)<\/strong> option from the Connection settings and provide the TFS server URL as shown below.<\/p>\n

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Click on \u2018Next\u2019<\/em> to connect to the TFS server. If you have already established the connection with TFS server or are connecting via the TFS web access, it will not prompt for the authentication. Otherwise, the system will prompt for credentials in order to connect to TFS server. Provide the TFS access credentials, if required, and continue.<\/p>\n

Once you are connected, the tool will list all the project collections to which you have access. We can select the appropriate project collection from the list of project collections.<\/p>\n

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Projects under the selected project collection will be displayed within a tree view with the selected project collection as the root node. Expand or select the project against which we are planning to perform the Exploratory Testing. This will display the teams created under the project. Select a team to create the work-items against the team. Once the work-items like bug, task created, it will appear in the product backlog of the selected team.<\/p>\n

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If you have many projects and teams, you can use the Search<\/em><\/strong> box near to the project collection dropdown list in order to filter or locate the project\/team.<\/p>\n

Select the project team and Click on \u2018Save\u2019<\/em> to complete the TFS project configuration.<\/p>\n

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If you need to, you can change these settings by using the Change<\/strong> option or link provided. If you want to connect to a different TFS\/VSTS server or want to work in Standalone mode, select the Disconnect<\/strong> option\/link.<\/p>\n

Connect to VSTS<\/h2>\n

Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS) is the cloud-based TFS offering from Microsoft. For more details on VSTS, please refer Visual Studio Team Services<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Exploratory Testing tool supports both TFS and VSTS for work-item management. You can connect to VSTS in the same way we connected to TFS.<\/p>\n

Go to the Connection Settings screen, select the \u2018Connected (TFS\/VSTS<\/em>)\u2019 option and provide the VSTS URL as the server URL.<\/p>\n

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Click on the \u2018Next<\/em>\u2019 button, which will invoke the live id authentication screen, as shown below. Provide the live account associated with the VSTS account and then authenticate.<\/p>\n

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Once you are connected, the tool will display a list of the projects under the project collection. The VSTS server URL you have entered in the \u2018connection settings\u2019 window refers to a single project collection, but TFS will have set of project collections associated with it. As shown below, we don\u2019t have the project collection drop-down list in case of VSTS connection.<\/p>\n

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Select the project and the team for which you are planning to perform the Exploratory Testing.<\/p>\n

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Click on \u2018Save\u2019<\/em> to connect with VSTS.<\/p>\n

New session<\/h2>\n

Now that you are connected, you can start a new Exploratory Testing session. Open the Chrome browser and navigate to the web application that needs to be tested.<\/p>\n

Once the Exploratory Testing tool is connected to TFS\/VSTS, or is used in Standalone mode, (as you\u2019ve already selected under Connection Settings), the Start Session<\/strong> icon ( ) will be enabled.<\/p>\n

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Click on the Start Session<\/strong> icon to start the testing session.<\/p>\n

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For the sample, we will use the www.asp.net<\/a> site.<\/p>\n

Once the session started, all the other icons such as screenshot capture and video recorder will get enabled.<\/p>\n

Capture screen-shot<\/h3>\n

We can capture screen-shots of the application using the Capture screenshot<\/strong> ( ) icon. Click on the icon to start the screen capture. Using the screen capture handler, we can select the complete or portion of the screen as shown below.<\/p>\n

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Select the area of the screen where we found some defects or something that requires to be improved. We can use various markers and highlighters that are available in the screen-capture toolbox to point to the objects or areas.<\/p>\n

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In this screenshot, we have used the eclipse and rectangle tools to highlight specific areas. As shown above, we have the option to select the color for the eclipse, rectangle, arrow and text.<\/p>\n

Capture Screenshot Toolbar<\/h4>\n

The \u2018Capture Screenshot Toolbar\u2019 provides various options to capture the screenshots along with whatever annotations are required. The options available are:<\/p>\n