Test Report Preparation: A Detailed Guide

Just as effective software testing is important, test reporting is equally valuable in overall QA activities. Test report or test summary report is prepared at the end of every QA cycle. This report highlights facts, risks, accomplishments and important events of the QA cycle. In this post, we will explore about effective test report preparation.

Test Report Preparation

Test summary report is the component that informs key project stakeholders of the critical aspects of the project’s status. It also outlines if current test cycle is successful of not. Test report typically contains below components.

Project Name: Name of the project.

Release Number: This should contain release/build number for which the test summary report is being prepared. Typically it is same as the release number received in current cycle’s release note.

Tested Items: This section contains items which are tested as part of test execution cycle. List down all the modules which have been released in current build and which are tested in QA cycle.

Status of Project: Present current status of project. It should contain total number of test cases executed in each browser, passed/failed/pending test cases, total number of defects reported in current test cycle. Also, provide classification of issues as per their priority/severity (Eg. Major, Critical etc.), issue status(Eg. Open, Resolved etc.) and their types(Eg. Bug, Improvement etc.). You can also cover some charts which shows defect distribution, defect detection rate and current state of testing in overall project duration.

Risks: Provide details about risks which may arise during testing activities in project. This could be too many number of unresolved issues, many Blocker/Critical/Major issues, untested feature, limited testing time etc. Be comprehensive in detailing risks so that preventive measures can be taken at project level by team members.

Project Health: Highlight overall project health in context of testing. Color coding can be used here to mark overall project health(Red/Orange/Green).

Conclusion/Remarks: Conclude the report by writing QA decision whether the current build has passed testing.

The above guidelines talks about important aspects of test report preparation. You may extend the test summary report with additional items which you think would be important in project. Do share with us about how do you go about test report preparation in your project.