Tricentis Tosca: Custom AddIn For Loading Requirements From Excel

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Welcome to this Post – “Custom AddIn For Loading Requirements From Excel In Tosca”.

This post discusses about the Tosca AddIn and how to create a custom one. We will also focus on some frequently asked Tosca Custom AddIn related questions for development of such AddIn which you should consider before implementing in your projects. The complete post is divided into small sections where we are discussing the problem statements, frequently discussed feasibility questions and concepts and then focusing on the Tosca custom AddIn creation. So, go ahead and enjoy reading…

Well if you are looking for solution on creating custom addin which are not being provided by Tosca Commander but you require them with functionality intended to support in your project then you are looking at right post.

What is an AddIn in Tricentis Tosca?

Before we dig deeper into the way of creation, there are few points you should focus on first. These below points can be different based on the project, test planning, etc should be considered before implementing the custom AddIn, control and xmodule:

 

1. Is it really going to help in your project?
2. Have you tried all the given modules to solve your problem statement?
3. Have you listed those approach and checked with your architect?
4. Have you identified the technology with which the custom AddIn, control or xmodule needed to be developed?
5. Do you have enough time in planning for developing custom AddIn, control or xmodule?
6. Do you possess development skillset for the required AddIn, control or module in question? Or does it require developer from DevTeam to coordinate with you? Etc.

Well the questions can be many, based on scenario you have.

So always try to evaluate the situation based on planning and if possible try discussing such scenarios as early as possible so that no more delay occurs in sprint.

Basically, an AddIn is like an addon in firefox or an extension in your chrome, similarly you can have as many addin’s in your Tosca Commander. AddIn’s helps to ease in completing some of your task effectively and efficiently. These are usually taken into account when some requirement needs to be achieved by all members of the team.

 

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Getting to know your problem statement

Let me begin this by recalling that if you closely notice there is an option for you to upload the requirements via MS Word document.

When you right click on the requirement set,

 – you see the context menu,

 – depending on the version of Tosca, you will see the option for “import the requirements from word”,

 –  once selected you get option to upload the file,

 – and finally you see the requirements added.

 

But what if you want a faster way to upload requirements?

Rather than wasting your time formatting the word document the way the  upload needs to be. Instead you can use excel file to upload the requirements.

 

In my project, we are following Agile – Feature Driven Methodology, and believe me no one has time to format the required doc the way Tosca Commander supports. And in each sprint, some 5-10 requirements kick in which are either part of previous one’s or completely new depending on the feature selected.

To cop up the situation, I created my own AddIn, such that only copy pasting the requirements into the excel file is required. This can be done by any tester in the team and later he can upload the same using the AddIn.

Now this means no more asking favor from BA, to provide the requirements in the format (he might be doing this for you, really a good person he is ! ;)) If he doesn’t provides you the file in the format, no worries as Team can use this AddIn to upload as per sprint.

 

Hence the better way for such problem statement is to create a custom AddIn and deploy the dll into Tosca home directory.

 

Solution

Now lets elaborate what I have developed so far.

1. This AddIn can work with any excel file.

2. You can goto 3 -levels of sub-requirements, i.e.

requirement-1

 |-> requirement-1.1

        |-> requirement-1.1.1

 

3. You don’t need to format the excel cells.

4. Once requirement set is created you can edit as per your own project requirement like what can be its frequency, damage etc.

 

So I developed my own AddIn using the VSTS (of course C#) and later combining the functionality into single module or dll technically. Post this I had deployed the solution to home directory of Tosca. Now when I start the Tosca Commander I see my option for importing requirements from excel from the context menu.

 

Please check the video for complete understanding.

Note: Video is by default mute.

 

 

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Conclusion

What is your project’s requirement, you need to focus on that. Try creating such solution only once you understand the limitations and feasibility of the solution you are about to offer.

 

I really hope you enjoyed reading the post. If you have any doubt on this please feel free to add your comment below.

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