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xx December 201814 January 2019

The Xray team is proud to announce the release of Xray 3.3.0.

The main feature of this version is the Automated Steps Library, the central place to easily manage and refactor all the Cucumber steps used in the context of a given project. In addition, autocomplete and filtering on the steps make editing of Cucumber Scenarios/Backgrounds easier.

We also included integration with Apwide Golive, an app that leverages the power of Test Environments.

As people use more and more the hierarchical test organization using the Test Repository and the Test Plan Board, a new flattened view facilitates the visualization and selection of Tests.

ability to easily migrate Xray related information from one JIRA instance to another; you may use Jira's backup&restore facilities to fully restore a project, including testing related data. Besides this, we also include a built-in Zephyr migration utility, so you can start taking advantage of Xray right-away.

Users using Structure will love the new enhancements available in the Xray extender, which now will also include the ability to manage the relation between Test Plans and Test Executions.

We know that the Traceability Report is important and quite useful to you; thus we added quick coverage status based filtering and also the ability to see all requirements at same level, as we had on earlier releases.

As part of our continuous improvement, more performance improvements landed in this version, for the most intensive gadgets/reports and JQL functionsThere are also improvements in the HP ALM/QC migration tool, several architectural changes for increased performance and much more.

Discover the key features below (smile)


Table of Contents

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Upgrading to Xray 3.3.0

From Xray After installing version 3.23.0 , the amount of information indexed by Jira's Lucene framework has increased. In order to not increase the index time, Xray is now pre-calculating this data so when re-indexing there is less calculation to be done.Whenever installing Xray 3.2.0 the first timeof Xray, if you upgrade from a version lower than 3.2, this implies that an upgrade task must will run to pre-calculate historical data. This action is a one time action and it will run in the backgroundthe background, so  so that Xray is still available during upgrade. However, this process may be long and heavy depending on the Jira instance size and thus we recommend to perform the upgrade at off peak times.

In order to manage this calculation, Xray provides a panel inside "Custom Field" preferences page from where you can stop, start and follow progress of it.

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After installing version 3.2.0 of Xray, a during upgrade. A re-index operation of your Jira instance is required so that the internal data becomes searchable and usable by Xray.

If you upgrade from v3.2.x to v3.3.y, you must recalculate data in Xray configuration section → Custom Fields. This recalculation is necessary because of a huge improvement in the amount of data that Xray need to add to the table and to Lucene indexes.


Downgrading from Xray 3.3.x

Downgrading from Xray 3.3.x to a version less than 3.2.x 0 implies that you must perform a re-index afterwards. This is because from Xray 3.2.0 onwards, the content and format of what Xray indexes has changed.

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Automated Steps Library and enhanced editing of Cucumber Tests/Pre-Conditions

Move data/restore projects between Jira instances


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For restoring projects, Jira offers the built-in "Project Import" tool which allows partial, project imports (i.e. importing a specific project from a previous backup). 

This tool has some limitations though; it cannot transfer apps/add-ons related data between instances unless apps are prepared for it.

Fortunately, since v3.3, Xray is able of taking advantage of this mechanism; on previous versions, issues would be restored but the testing data wouldn't.

Thus, you can now use built-in backup&restore facilities of Jira:


  • for copying a project from one Jira instance to another Jira instance (e.g. from staging to production, or from internal to a DMZ instance)
  • to restore a project upon some mistake/data loss has been done in that project within an existing Jira instance

If you've adopted BDD and Cucumber, the number of Cucumber Scenarios/Backgrounds will increase as your project grows. Since Cucumber steps can, and shall, be used across different test specifications, you may need to do some refactoring on your existing steps to avoid duplicates and foster reusability.

The Automated Steps Library provides a central place to view and manage all the Cucumber steps used in the context of a given project. This will allow you to classify/label steps, refactor them (update, merge), and quickly identify the entities that use them.

Steps are added automatically to the Automated Steps Library when Tests or Pre-Conditions are created or updated. Once in the library, they can be used to create/update Cucumber Tests/Pre-Conditions, using autocomplete and filtering steps based on labels.

You can now be much more efficient using the enhanced editor for Cucumber based Tests/Pre-Conditions right inside Jira.


Learn more here.

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Integration with Apwide Golive (previously "Apwide Test Environment Manager")

Built-in Zephyr for Jira migration utility


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Xray now provides you with powerful capabilities to analyze test results and coverage on a per Test Environment basis. You can easily understand how tests and requirements are faring on specific target environments.

To answer the needs of our customers dealing with many Applications and Test Environments, we have built an integration with Apwide Golive, a Jira app with advanced Environment and Release Management functionalities.

On Xray screens, the QA team knows as soon as an Environment becomes unstable or when the wrong version of an application is deployed. Efficiency increases with clickable links to access the Environments and the possibility to book dedicated Environments for test campaigns.

Test Executions and Test Plans are now planned on a Timeline with drag-and-drop and Xray issues dates are automatically updated. Jira filters can be used to obtain a real-time list of bugs that can be tested on a specific environment, taking into consideration the deployed version and the environment status. You can easily understand how tests and requirements are faring on specific target environments.

a built-in migration utility for Zephyr for Jira, so you can easily migrate to Xray and take advantage of the many features Xray provides over Zephyr.

As you may still have some projects using Zephyr for Jira, you may now inline migrate the Tests and related data to Xray following a wizard.

This specific utility is available in Jira administration, under System > Import and Export > External System Export> Watch the video.


Learn more here.

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New gadgets: Requirements List and Overall Test Results

Enhanced existing gadgets with time based filtering and more


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Besides adding time based filters to the Test Runs Summary gadget, now you can also group Test Runs by Test (key).

The Test Evolution, Test Runs List, Test Runs Summary gadgets were all improved so that you may see results for the last X number of days.

This will allow you to see and assess only the most recent information based on the information of the past days.

Two new gadgets to track QA progress in your Jira dashboards: Requirements List Gadget and the Overall Test Results Gadget.

The Requirements List Gadget provides an enhanced list of requirements, including hierarchical information (e.g., Epic > Story), along with completeness information and respective number of Tests, analyzed in the context of some version or Test Plan. This information is similar to the one seen at the end of the page in the Overall Requirement Coverage Report whenever drilling-down on some requirements.

The Overall Test Results Gadget provides an overview of the status of Tests, in the context of a version or Test Plan. Thus, you can see the number of Tests that passed or failed, displayed in a pie chart or in a table layout.


Learn more about these and all other gadgets here.

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Flat View for Test Repository and Test Plan Board

Enhanced Structure Extender


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If you're using Structure app to view and manage Xray related entities right from a "structure", the enhanced Xray extender now provides the ability to:

  • see and manage associations between Test Plans and Test Executions
  • choose to synchronize Tests to Test Plans whenever adding/removing Tests from the related Test Executions (e.g. if you add a Test to Test Execution, it can automatically be added to the related Test Plan(s))
  • choose whether to manage or not Tests directly under Test Plans

As more and more people use the hierarchical test organization via the Test Repository and the Test Plan Board, we introduce a new flattened view for easy visualization and selection.

While the default hierarchical view provides a way to see how Tests are organized, the new "Flat View" provides the means to obtain all Tests within a given folder, eventually filter them using some criteria, select a subset of those and then do operations with them, regardless of the folder they're stored in.


Learn more here.

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Performance improvements

Flat presentation and coverage filters on the Traceability Report


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The Traceability Report was enhanced in order to support hierarchical and flat presentation.

Whenever using the hierarchical presentation (which was previously the default) the "requirements" and the child/sub-requirements are shown; in this case the Filter is used to select the parent requirements. Whenever using "flat" presentation, all "requirements" are shown at the same level; in this case, the Filter applies to all of them.

It is also now possible to apply some quick filters, in this case on the coverage. Thus, you can filter out only uncovered requirements or only the requirements that are NOK, for example; or a mix of coverage status if you want. By providing counters for each coverage status, you can quickly evaluate the amount of requirements that are currently in a certain status and that may need some attention.


Learn more here

We're doing ongoing architectural changes that will provide performance benefits across several different areas in future versions. Version 3.2.0 adds some improvements, including the calculation of the Test Plans overall status/progress bar, global and per-folder (in the Board).

Improving performance is an ongoing effort, so expect additional enhancements to come.




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New documentation: Tutorials, Tips and Tricks

Welcome to our new area of the triple T: Tutorials, Tips & Tricks (smile)

We have created a specific section in our documentation with tutorials, tips, recommendations and some articles so that you deepen your knowledge of Xray.

All available from within one place, easing the task of finding useful information to you.

Learn more here.

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Email Notifications for changes on the specifications of Tests and Pre-Conditions

Performance improvements


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We know that the editing of Tests is quite dynamic. Some users want to get notified upon every change in the Test/Pre-Condition specification, while others don't.

Since Test cases are abstracted as Jira issues, you can also have changes on all the standard fields at the issue level.

On the other hand, Jira's notification schemes don't allow you to define notifications on a per-issue-type basis, and you may want to get updates on Stories and Bugs but not on Tests, or vice-versa.

Thus, we have created a specific event that will be triggered whenever the specification of a Test/Pre-Condition is changed, giving you the ability to define notifications for it.

It will be triggered upon:

  • adding/removing/updating steps in Manual Tests
  • updating the "Generic Test Definition" of Generic Tests
  • updating the "Cucumber Scenario" of Cucumber Tests
  • updating the "Conditions" of Pre-Conditions.

Learn more here.

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As part of our continuous performance improvements, we've improved several areas from reports/gadgets to functions.

The most intensive task related with calculation of coverage is now pre-calculated, which should provide quite noticeable performance improvements.

In sum, we've improved performance on:

  • Test Lists gadget;
  • Overall Requirement Coverage gadget & report;
  • Historical Requirement Coverage gadget & report;
  • requirements() and requirementsWithStatusByTestPlan() JQL functions.


Improving performance is an ongoing effort, so expect additional enhancements to come ahead.



And more...


JQLREST APIXporter
  • Support for Test Execution filter as argument in the testPlanTestExecutions() JQL function

    testPlanTestExecutions("my_testplans_list")

  • Support for Tests filter as argument in the testRequirements() JQL function

    testRequirements("my_tests_list")

  • Return ids of step and attachments whenever updating or creating Test steps
  • Enhanced integration with Xporter, in terms of performance and also by providing access to the Test Run rank within a Test Execution
AdministrationREST APIOtherMaximum selectable Test Runs for bulk operations. Read more here.
  • Metrics: Xray now collects some anonymous usage metrics (e.g., counters) that will allow us to improve Xray for all of you. You can opt-out of this, but we kindly ask that you leave it enabled. Please read our Privacy Policy.
    • Xray JSON Multipart
    Test Statuses
    Test Step Statuses
    Get/Update Test Run assignee
  • Get/Update Test Run executed by
    • HP ALM/QC Importer:
  • support for HTTPS
  • ability to create folder structure in the Test Repository
    • ability to specify the base folder from where Tests will be imported from
    New branding with new logos. Hope you love it as much as we do! Please see our new website https://www.getxray.app.

    New Features and Bug Fixes in this release

     

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    serverIdb6309ad5-5416-33d6-9a09-a3e02f20d3e6

    ...