How to Pin a Baseline to a Test Set in Quality Center

You may want to reuse and update a test case, however, the test case you want to update is currently in use. Changing a test case when in use may lead to unintended consequences (impacting another tester). Quality Center allows you to manage and run multiple versions of test cases simultaneously by pinning a baseline to a test set. Here we will explain how to pin a baseline to a test set in Quality Center or ALM.

Understanding the Problem

Suppose we are writing a test case for a login screen. All version 1 requires is a login and password field with a submit button.

When version 2 comes out it will allow users to login and also login with their Facebook username and password.

Now see what happens when the tester runs the test case in version 1 test set. Unfortunately, the tester of version 1 is running the test case with the facebook login which has not been released yet.

Note the test case for version 1 Updated

Note the screenshot above shows the version 1 test case login to be updated. Now let’s look how to resolve this issue.

How to Pin a Baseline to a Test Set in ALM

Step 1: Create a Library and Define Your Scope

To begin, click on the Management toolbar and find the Libraries button. In this example, we will create a library called “Travel Site”. Then we will select our scope. Here our scope is all the test cases in the demo folder which contains the login test case.

How to Pin a Baseline to a Test Set: Step 1 Create a Library and Define the Scope — Create a Library and Define the Scope

Step 2: Create a Baseline

Next, we want to create a baseline. Click on the Create Baseline button and give it a date. In this example, we will call the baseline June 1st.

Step 3: Pin To Baseline

Next, we go to the test set version 1 and right-click on it and select Pin to Baseline.

Note you can also assign a baseline using the test set details tab. If you have pinned your test cases correctly you will notice the test set now looks like a stamp.

Select Baseline in the test set details page

Step 4: Update the test case

Now that we have pinned a test set to version 1 it is now safe to update the test case “Login”.

Step 5: Run both Test Sets and note the Difference

Note the Differrence — Note the Difference

Now you know how to pin a baseline to a test set in quality center.