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May 28, 2015

TFS 2013: Querying test cases with 2 Tags via OR condition is not working

We create so many test cases. In order to organize them nicely, we add “Tags” in each test case in TFS web dashboard. (Note: I don’t have permission to add tags in MTM, but I do have permission to add tags in TFS web dashboard)
When querying test cases with 2 Tags using OR condition in TFS 2013, I can’t believe it is not working. The query is pending forever and never gets the result back. It is not working in TFS Web dashboard, either.

When querying in MTM 2013 using the same condition, it shows the following error. 

I would say querying 1 tag is always working, but querying test cases with 2 Tags via OR condition is not working in TFS , TFS web dashboard and MTM. It is the known issue after I filed a bug to Microsoft Connect.

Fixed the presence unknown issue in MS Outlook 2010 after the upgrade from MS Office Communicator 2007 to MS Lync 2013

This week, our IT department was doing the upgrade from Microsoft Office Communicator 2007 R2 to Microsoft Lync 2013. After the upgrade, I noticed that the presence status in Microsoft Outlook 2010 showed “Unknown”.
After looking into this interesting issue, I noticed that upgrade means install because Microsoft Lync and Microsoft Office communicator appear in Programs and Features. But Office Communicator 2007 is turned off in Startup program.
How to fix the unknown status issue?
In Search dialog box, enter regedit.
Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\IM Providers.
Click DefaultIMApp and it shows Communicator. Change it to Lync.


Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\IM Providers\Lync.
Add a new DWORD (32-bit) value and name is UpAndRunning. Set Value data = 2 (Hexadecimal).


Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\IM Providers\Communicator. In UpAndRunning, set Value data = 0 (Hexadecimal). (Note: this is optional if your office communicator is not launched automatically)

After rebooting the laptop, the presence status appears in MS Outlook 2010.

May 22, 2015

License issue: don’t use “Testers” field in MTM.

2 weeks ago my manager talked to me that we created so many test cases for Release 1, but all “Testers” are showing your name!  I replied: That’s because "AssignedTo" and "Testers" are different.  I use “Assigned to” field in TFS and MTM all the time.
When viewing test cases in TFS, we only see “AssignedTo “as follows:


Can you change the name in “Testers” field in TFS? The answer is NO in TFS because there is no “Testers” field . But you can change it in MTM. Click one test case, right click and choose “assign testers to select for selected tests”

You can also change it in TFS Web dashboard once you have the license to see the test suites inside the Test tab. But I heard it costs more than $ 2,000 per person. Is it worth it?  If you don’t have the license of installing MTM, you can’t change “Testers” either.



In the project team, only testers care about test case creation and execution. Who cares about how many test suites you have in Test tab? They only care about the tasks assigned to testers in each sprint.

From my experience, testers can sit down with business analysts and developers to go through test cases to see if there is something missing, but they are not interested in testers’ work. The project team only cares about the final test result.

Due to license issue, not all people in the project team can view test suites inside the “Test” tab in TFS Web dashboard. If the budget is limited in your project team, I don’t see any value using “Testers” field in this case.

May 21, 2015

Fixe the issue in Parasoft SOAtest: Message: Could not find endpoint in client configuration file

In SOATest, we have the configuration file called Environments.env where we store environment variables. When running my BVTs today, some of them failed.
I notice that our team added a new path (/BusinessService ) in the URL. After updating it in Environments.env and running BVTs again, I saw the following error message. Closing and reopening SOAtest still could not solve the issue.
Could not find endpoint in client configuration file: WCF URL

After looking into this interesting issue, I notice “Constrain request to WSDL” in some tests was checked. After unchecking it and running BVTs again, all tests passed.