Link manual and Gherkin tests to automated tests

This topic describes how to link manual and Gherkin tests to automated tests. A manual or Gherkin test is automated if it has an automated test covering it.

Overview

When you link manual tests to automated tests, you can:

Know what the automated test covers.
Avoid manual runs if a test was already run automatically.
Track automation coverage.

Test linkage relationship

Linkage between manual and Gherkin tests to automated tests, or between manual tests and codeless tests, can be a one-to-one or a many-to-many relationship.

Relationship	Details
One-to-one	An automated test can only be linked to one manual or Gherkin test and vice versa.
Many-to-many	Automated tests can be linked to more than one manual and/or Gherkin test and vice versa. Using a many-to-many relation between manual/Gherkin tests and automated tests enables a more accurate reflection of automation coverage and effort tracking. Note: Codeless tests behave the same as automated tests. This means there is a many-to-many relation between Codeless and manual tests, and a manual test is automated if it has a codeless test covering it.

Relationship

Details

One-to-one

An automated test can only be linked to one manual or Gherkin test and vice versa.

Many-to-many

Automated tests can be linked to more than one manual and/or Gherkin test and vice versa.

Using a many-to-many relation between manual/Gherkin tests and automated tests enables a more accurate reflection of automation coverage and effort tracking.

Note: Codeless tests behave the same as automated tests. This means there is a many-to-many relation between Codeless and manual tests, and a manual test is automated if it has a codeless test covering it.

Change linkage relationship

By default, the many-to-many relation type is set by default. To switch to a one-to-one relationship, change the ALLOW_MANY_TO_MANY_RELATION_BETWEEN_TEST_SUBTYPES parameter value to false. For details, see Configuration parameters.

After switching to a one-to-one relationship:

All linked test relationships remain unchanged; multiple tests are still covered.
If you attempt to link a new test (you can only select one test), the selected test will replace all the existing linked tests.

Link to automated tests

This section describes how to link manual and Gherkin tests to automated tests.

To link manual and Gherkin tests to automated tests:

Open a manual or Gherkin test.
In the Relations tab, click the Add Relation button and select Covering Automated Test.

Tip: In an automated test, select Covered Manual Test, Gherkin Test to link between them.
Select one or more automated tests from the list and click Add.

In the relations grid, the tests are connected in the map. The automated tests are also assigned to the backlog items and application modules of the parallel manual or Gherkin test.

In addition, in a linked manual test, the test's automation status is updated as Automated, and remains this way until the last automated test (if more than one automated test is linked to it) is unlinked from it.
Run the tests as required in the Manual Runner or in the pipeline with the automated tests.

View run results of the automated test runs and manual or Gherkin test runs in the test's Runs tab.

If multiple manual or Gherkin tests are linked to an automated test, when you run the automated test, all the covered tests that are linked to the automated test will run, and all runs related to the covered tests are displayed.