Overview

Generic Tests may be used in several ways: as exploratory or non-organized manual tests; they can also be used to have visibility of your automated tests in Jira.

A "Generic" Test can be used as an abstraction of an automated Test, so that it can be managed in Jira, linked to requirements, and we can report on its related results.

Basically, you manage Generic Tests the same way as you would do for other Test Types.

A Generic Test is uniquely identified by the issue key. We can also use the Generic Test Definition field to somehow identify the Test (e.g., by setting it with class and method that implements the test code, or the automated script file name).

Xray does not enforce any constraint on the Generic Test Definition field, so it is optional and you may use it as an additional field for quickly identifying what this test is all about.

How to use Generic Tests

The JUnit integration (see details in Taking advantage of JUnit XML reports) is a good example of how Generic Tests may be used as an abstraction of automated tests, regardless of the testing framework and the technologies/platforms used.

In general, you would follow this workflow.

1. Create a Generic Test in Jira.
   1. The test will be uniquely identified by the issue key; however, the Generic Test Definition custom field may be used as a more friendly way to identify the test (e.g., with the name of the test class/method, name of the script or executable implementing the test).
   2. The test can be automatically created in Jira when importing test results; as mentioned in the previous point, the Generic Test Definition field acts as the test identifier.
2. Implement the automated test code, store it in the source control system, and put the reference to the Test in Jira (i.e., the issue key).
   1. This depends on the testing framework: it can be as a "tag" or as the test name, if the framework supports that.
3. Execute tests in the CI environment.
4. Report execution results using XRay JSON format (and optionally, the REST API).
   1. In order to build the JSON file containing the test results, you will need to reference the Tests in Jira by their issue key.

If you have a project already being validated by automated tests which are not in Jira, you may create the Generic Tests in bulk either by building a CSV and import it or by using Jira's REST API (see example here).