Azure DevOps Test Plans – End‑to‑End Tutorial

Test Plans in Azure DevOps provides a comprehensive solution for managing manual and exploratory testing. This tutorial walks you through the entire lifecycle, from creating a test plan to analyzing test results.

Overview

Test Plans lets you:

• Create, organize, and execute test cases.
• Run manual, exploratory, and automated tests.
• Track test outcomes and generate rich reports.
• Integrate with pipelines for continuous testing.

Prerequisites

• An Azure DevOps organization (dev.azure.com).
• Basic familiarity with Azure Boards and Repos.
• Permission to create Test Plans (Project Admin or Test Manager).
• Optional: A test suite in a Git repo if you plan to run automated tests.

Create a Test Plan

1. Navigate to Test Plans in the left navigation.
2. Click New Test Plan.
3. Enter a name (e.g., Release 1.0 – Regression) and select the appropriate area path.
4. Choose the iteration (sprint) that the plan belongs to.
5. Click Create.

Add Test Cases

Test cases can be added manually, imported from a CSV, or linked from existing work items.

Manual entry

1. Select the plan, then click New Test Case.
2. Provide a title, steps, expected results, and any tags.
3. Save the case.

Import from a CSV

Title,Steps,Expected Result,Tags
Login validation,"1. Open login page\n2. Enter credentials","User is redirected to dashboard","smoke,login"
Search feature,"1. Enter query\n2. Press Enter","Results displayed","regression"

Run Tests

Execute test cases individually or as part of a test suite.

1. Select a test case or suite.
2. Click Run → choose Manual or Automated.
3. Record outcomes (Pass/Fail) and add comments.
4. Save results to update the test run.

Reporting & Analytics

After execution, Azure DevOps provides built-in dashboards and queries.

• Test Summary – Overview of passed/failed tests.
• Requirement Traceability – Links between requirements and test cases.
• Chart Widgets – Add to team dashboards for visual insights.

Next Steps

• Integrate test runs with Azure Pipelines for continuous testing.
• Explore Automated testing using Azure Test Plans.
• Set up Analytics widgets for deep insights.