The DAWGS group has been using release tickets to coordinate user acceptance testing for major system updates. This groups together all of the tickets associated with that testing cycle, so that they can be seen and tracked in a single location.
Guide for testers
The testing coordinator should provide you with the URL for a Release ticket, specifically to the list of Release child tickets.
If testing just started, the list might be empty. Here's an example screenshot with a few entries:
How to add tickets to this list:
- Add Existing can be used to add a pre-existing ticket to this list. This opens a ticket search popup.
- Add New can be used to create a new ticket and add it to this list. This opens a new ticket form.
If the "Add Existing" search is too cumbersome, another option is to view any existing ticket directly, click the green Actions button, click Set Parent, and enter the ID number of the Release ticket.
Once the ticket has been submitted, it's included in this list for easy tracking, but otherwise it is a regular ticket and can follow regular ticket workflows.
Guide for testing coordinators
Before testing can begin, you will need a Release ticket. You can start with an existing ticket, or create a new one (the Report an Issue with PeopleSoft service is a good choice).
Open the ticket in the TDNext view (technician view).
Key elements in this view:
- A box just below the ticket title will show the ticket classification, such as Service Request, Incident, or Release. If this already says Release, this is a Release ticket.
- A green Actions button shows more options to alter the ticket.
- One of the Actions on a ticket allows us to Edit Classification.
In the Edit Classification popup, set the classification to Release and click the Save button.
Back on the ticket, go to the Children tab and copy the URL for that page. This is the URL that you should give to your testers.
When you first create a Release ticket, it won't have any children at first. The Add Existing or Add New buttons can be used to add child tickets.
Important caveat: We are encouraging testers to use the Add New button to create tickets during testing. The ticket created this way will copy most of its default values from the parent ticket, including the title, description, and status. There are several recommendations related to that:
- For Title, keep it short, such as "Appsian SSO testing", something that can be used as a prefix for a longer title on each submitted ticket.
- For Description, keep it short, ideally something that mentions user testing, since that description will become the first line of the description on each submitted ticket,
- For Status, leave it set on New, since you want submitted tickets to come in with New status.
When users submit tickets, they will tend to come in with a default form, such as the default Service Request form, or the default Incident form. You can leave this as-is, or you can edit each ticket as it comes in.