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Test Plans

By Sandra Asebedo posted 13 days ago

  

Test Plan

January 5, 2026

Sandra Asebedo

UT Arlington – Connected Campus Council Member

What is a Test Plan: It is a document that describes how to test a change or new page, process, query, or interface.

Elements of a good Test Plan:

1.      Describe what the change or new page, process, query, or interface is and its purpose.

2.      Describe any applicable business rules.

3.      Describe steps in how to test the change or new page, process, query, or interface.

4.      Describe expected outcomes.

   In other words:

1.      Navigation to the page, process query.

2.      Where the interface is run, what systems it hits, where the file or xml should be going.  What the expected outcome should be.

3.      Any specific SQL you use to find test cases.

4.      You should test adding, changing data. 

If multiple fields are involved each field should be tested.

5.      You should test each element of the report for accuracy.

Benefits of a Test Plan

·       Documents the intended use case of the change, modification, or bolt-on.

·       Helps in Maintenance of the change, modification, or bolt-on for both the customer and technical team that will support the change, modification or bolt-on.

·       Can serve as a job aid for others not so familiar with the change.

Conclusion

   Test plans a necessary piece of documentation for any change, modification, or bolt-on.  It helps support change, modification, or bolt-on’s.  It is beneficial to both functional and technical users.

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Comments

2 days ago

Good breakdown! Test plans really do make life easier, especially when you need to go back and figure out what something does later. Nice summary.

11 days ago

This document clearly explains what a test plan is and outlines the key elements in a logical, easy-to-follow way. It addresses both functional and technical perspectives, making it useful for a broad audience. 

11 days ago

One thing I like to do is start thinking about testing very early in the process. We have a template that defines scenarios and expected outcomes before we start an implementation/integration, and then those exact same scenarios become our test plan!

13 days ago

This is good stuff, @Sandra Asebedo! Do you have any templates as your starting points for test plans that you might be able to share with us?