Adopt Naming Conventions

You should understand these PTF test asset naming limitations:

• Test names and test case names must be unique.

  Tests and test case are PeopleTools managed objects, a very important type of PeopleSoft metadata. As a result, test names must be unique to a database and test case names must be unique to a test.

• Test and test case names are limited to letters, numbers, and underscore characters.

  The first character of any test or test case name must be a letter.

• Test and test case names are limited to 30 characters.

You will find it easier to manage test assets if you adopt a systematic naming convention that reflects important characteristics of the tests and test cases you create. Here are a few suggested test characteristics that you can incorporate in your PTF test names:

• Functionality being tested.

  Include a brief indication of the functional area or business process validated by the test.

• Priority. A short code, such as “P1,” to indicate priority can help testers more easily locate the tests that are critical or likely to be run most often.

• Runtime order.

  PTF Explorer sorts tests alphabetically within each folder. It is sometimes useful to view tests in order of intended runtime, especially if some tests depend on other tests having been run previously in the same database. Include a numeric component early in the name of the test to make alphabetic order equal to runtime order.

It may seem simpler to use folders to categorize tests by the above characteristics. However, folder names are often not visible to the tester and do not appear on some PTF reports, such as the Test Maintenance Report. So, regardless of whether you categorize tests by folder, it is helpful to build test characteristics into the names of your tests.

The following three test names are examples of a naming convention that reflects functionality, priority, and intended runtime order:

• WRKFRC_P1_01_HIRE_REQD_FLDS

• WRKFRC_P1_02_PERSON_CHNG 21

• WRKFRC_P1_03_JOB_DATA_UPDAT