Xray v3.0 introduces hierarchical Tests organization both at the project level, with the Test Repository, and also at Test Plan level, with the Test Plan Board.

While the Test Repository concern is related with the organization of Tests in the scope of a given project during the specification phase, the Test Plan Board concern is on organization at planning level (and as consequence, at execution).

A Test Plan contains a group of Tests that you wish to validate in some version, and aggregates the results from multiple iterations (e.g. Test Executions).

For a given Test Plan that is tracking some group of Tests (e.g. regression testing related test plan or new features related test plan) you may wish to organize the Tests by component or by sub-system or by functional/non-functional or by any other criteria.

The (Test Plan) Board gives you the possibility to organize the Tests that are part of your Test Plan in multiple folders and sub-folders. Implicitly, you can also define the order of the Tests and the relevance of those grouped Tests (i.e. folders) by ranking them within the tree presented within the Board.

By providing you the ability to define groups and sub-groups (i.e. folders and sub-folders) for the Test Plan's Tests, you're able to track them independently and see right way their current status, even if the scope of the Test Plan is broader. You can also more easily do operations for those subset of Tests, such as creating Test Executions .

This hierarchical approach is different from the traditional, flat way of organizing Tests inside the Test Plan, which was the only available before Xray v3.0.

Users coming from legacy Test Management tools may find this way more natural and more intuitive. Other organizations may prefer to not enable this feature at all.

Thus, a general setting enables users to globally opt-in or opt-out of this hierarchical way of organizing Tests inside the Test Plan.

Key concepts

Within the Test Plan Board screen you can see some meta-folders that provide you quick ways to see or filter some relevant Tests. These folders are read-only and will be used mainly as basis to select the proper Tests before adding them to folders within the Test Repository itself.

• All: all Test issues that are part of the Test Plan, ordered by their Test Plan rank
• Orphans: all non-organized Test issues (i.e. Tests that are not part of the Board), in the context of the current Test Plan
  

Besides these folders, you can also see the Board itself that contains the hierarchically organized tests for this Test Plan.

• Board: the actual Test Plan Board, composed of multiple folders and sub-folders along with Tests, in the context of the current Test Plan. It corresponds to the root folder.

Within the Board root folder, multiple folders can be created and Tests can be added to them. The root folder may only contain folders. Similar to traditional operating systems (e.g. Windows, OSX, Linux), Tests may only be part of one folder.

Tests can be added (i.e. "moved") from the All or from the Orphans meta-folders to the destination Board's folder, by selecting and moving them using drag-and-drop. Besides this, Tests can also be moved between folders. The user can also choose the Tests to add to a given folder, by selecting the folder and choose the "Add Tests" context action for adding Tests using filters or JQL.

Folders can be created at the root of the Test Plan Board or in any (sub)folder within it.

In a given parent folder, it is not allowed to have folders with similar names. For this, Xray does a case-insentive check of the trimmed folder name whenever you create or rename folder in order to evaluate if a similar folder already exists within its parent. This means that these folder names would all be considered to be the same: "  phanTom", "phantom", "PHANTOM". Please note that it is not allowed to use the "/" in the folder name.

Recommendations

The Test Plan Board scope is its related Test Plan; thus the kind of concerns you have with are different from the ones you shall have with the Test Repository.

Concerning the Test Plan Board, think well how to structure the hierarchy of folders, having in mind that a Test may only be in folder.

These questions may help you out defining a better structure for your Board:

• What things (i.e. Tests) are most relevant and shall be executed first?
• what things do you want track and manage (e.g. schedule executions) independently?

Test Plan Board vs Test Repository

What are the differences between Test Plan Board and the Test Repository?

They are two completely different things because their scope is different.

The Test Repository is a project level organization of all the Tests contained within a given project. Thus, it's something with a more broader scope, where one or more authorized users organize the Tests in multiple folders, in some logical way, without being concerned with execution related aspects. Thus, the Test Repository can be used as basis for creating any other entity, such as Test Sets, Test Plans, Test Executions.

The Test Plan Board is a Test Plan level organization; it allows users responsible for dealing with some Test Plans, to structure their plans more effectively, so they can give priority to the execution of someTests first and also have clear visibility on how different sets and subsets of tests are within the Test Plan.

So, independently on the way you organize the Tests in the project, by using the Test Repository, you may choose how to organize Tests within each Test Plan by using the respective Test Plan Board, in order go gain finer visibility of the current status of different subsets of Tests and also to schedule executions for them, as an example.

Pros and Cons

The following table summarizes some pros and cons of using the Test Plan Board.

FAQ

Do I have to use the Board in order to organize the Tests in a given Test Plan?

No. You can simple use the standard flat organization, right on the issue screen of the Test Plan where you can also rank the Tests the way you want. The Test Plan Board is something that you can choose whether to use or not, in each Test Plan, in order to organize hierarchicaly the Tests within it and track and manage the progress of subset of Tests. 

Are there any advantages of using the Board even if I don't want to use hierarchical test organization?

There are some that may be useful to you, including:

• ability to easily see the overall progress for all Tests, in a given Test Environment
• ability to easily filter out the Tests you want, for scheduling Test Executions

Can I use the Test Plan Board and not the Test Repository?

Yes. Both are enabled based on the same setting in Xray's preferences. However, the Test Repository will only be available for users with a certain role(s), as defined also in Xray's preferences.