Creating Release Test Plans in MTM

A Release Test Plan should be created for every Release. As noted earlier each Release should have a Release Work Item to represent it, and the User Stories that are included in that Release should be linked to the Release Work Item.

In general Release Test Plans contain 4 categories of Tests that will be represented by 4 Test Suites:
 * New Functionality - This represents re-running the new Test Cases that have been created for the new functionality included in this release.
 * Automated Tests - This is all the automated Test Cases available that will typically be included in each Release Test Plan.
 * Stabilization Tests - These are the broad Test Cases that are not tied to a specific User Story, and are intended to do some basic regression testing across a large data set.
 * Regression Tests - These are old Test Cases for pre-existing functionality that should not have changed during this Release.


 * 1) Create a new Test Plan and name it after the Release which it is for.  e.g. 2014.2.9 Release Plan
 * 2) Click New to add 4 new root-level Static Suites: Automated Tests, New Functionality, Regression Tests, Stabilization Tests
 * 3) Select the New Functionality suite and click Add Requirements.
 * 4) Run a query to find all User Stories linked to Active Releases (change Query Type to Work Items and Direct Links, then setup the criteria as shown in the screenshot below)
 * 5) Select some or all of the User Stories linked to the Release which we're testing.
 * 6) Click Add Requirements to Plan
 * 7) Select Automated Tests suite
 * 8) Click Add to add some Test Cases to this Suite.
 * 9) Run a query to find all Automated Test Cases (by querying all test cases with a non-blank Automated Test Name)
 * 10) Select some or all of the Tests and click Add Test Cases
 * 11) Select Stabilization Tests suite
 * 12) Click Add to add some Test Cases to this Suite
 * 13) Run a query to find all Stabilization Test Cases (by querying on the Area Path Under coresystems\Enterprise Test\Stabilization Testing)
 * 14) Select some or all of the Tests and click Add Test Cases
 * 15) Select Regression Tests suite
 * 16) Click Add to add some Test Cases to this Suite
 * 17) Following the guidance provided in the Testing Phases section run one or more queries and/or custom reports to identify good candidates for Regression Tests and add them to this Test Plan

Note: Once the Release has been deployed the Release Test Plan can be retired by setting the State of the Test Plan to Inactive