May 10th, 2024

The Xray team is proud to announce the release of Xray 7.6.0. 

We are thrilled to announce the release of Custom Test Types, a powerful new feature that enhances flexibility and customization within Xray Data Center.
With this update, users gain the ability to define and utilize custom test types tailored to their unique testing requirements, providing unparalleled versatility and efficiency in test management.


Upgrade Notes

Upgrading Xray to 7.6.0


This implies that an upgrade task will run to map the oldest test types for the new kind. This one-time action will run in the background so that Xray remains available during the upgrade. A re-index operation of your Jira instance is required to make the internal data searchable and usable by Xray.

Test Types

Xray supports the following kinds of Tests:

  • Steps - defined with an ordered list of steps. Each step contains the action and the excepted result along with other fields.
  • Gherkin - defined using the Gherkin language for BDD.
  • Unstructured - defined with a single text field without any enforced structure.

When Xray is first installed, one Test Type is installed for each Test kind that Xray supports:

  • Manual (Steps kind)
  • Cucumber (Gherkin kind)
  • Generic (Unstructured kind)

Downgrading from Xray 7.6.0


Downgrading from Xray 7.6.0 to a previous version may have the following side effects:

Until Xray 7.6.0, Xray DC only supported the Test types below

KindTest Type/ Pre-Condition Type
StepsManual
Gherkin

Cucumber, Automated[Cucumber], Gherkin, Behave, SpecFlow, Behat

UnstructuredGeneric, Automated[Generic], Other


If you create a new Custom Type and map it to a Kind, when downgrading, Xray will not know about this mapping and will assume it is an Unstructured Test.

  • For example, you create a Type called "Hierarchical Steps" and map it to the Kind Steps. When downgrading, the testers will see the Xray UI of an Unstructured Test. When changing the Test type to Manual, the data and correct UI will be shown. 

Release highlights 

Custom Test Types




This highly requested Xray Enterprise feature allows users to create and manage multiple versions of the same test case, to easily track and revert changes in your test specification.

Why Custom Test Types?

Test cases are not static. They evolve when requirements change, or improvements are made to the application under test. Although Xray logs test specification changes in the Jira history, it is not easy to revert to a specific test case version. With Test case versioning, you can now:

  • Create a new version of a test case with a single click
  • Compare different versions of a test case and see what has changed
  • Restore a previous version of a test case if needed
  • Assign a test case version to a test execution or a test plan
  • Track the test execution results for each test case version
  • Mark specific milestones of the Test with versions
  • Have multiple active versions simultaneously,  even of different Test Types, as you can execute them all independently.


If you want to learn more about Test case versioning, please visit our documentation page here.




Just one more, yet important, thing...

Documentation is always important, and sometimes you may miss it.

Here's a summary of all the relevant articles that we've added and updated recently: