Use test data

Test data is essential for building meaningful, stable, and resilient tests. This topic breaks down what test data is, highlights common challenges, and explains available solutions in Tosca Cloud. The Get Started section helps you put your chosen solution into action.

What test data is

Every time you fill out a test step in a test case, you need to define a value for this test step. The value determines the actual input or interaction with your application under test. Values can do different things. For example, trigger a click on a button or generate dynamic content based on your specifications, such as timestamps.

However, in most cases, the value contains some form of data that you want to enter, verify, or process. This is the type of data we refer to as test data.

Common challenges

Test data can present a few challenges:

You need to identify the right test data for your tests. Incorrect or irrelevant test data can lead to false positives, missed defects, or gaps in coverage.
You need to maintain test data in a consistent and accessible location. Centralized test data ensures that your tests are easy to scale and that your team can easily access everything they need to create great tests.
You need to generate enough test data to support your tests. Sufficient and diverse test data is key to strong test coverage, which ensures that your application meets all success criteria.

Solutions in Tosca Cloud

When it comes to creating automated test cases, your approach impacts speed, maintainability, and overall effectiveness.

You could create test cases without using any sort of test data solution, but that’s the least efficient route. Tosca Cloud offers more advanced options: one that significantly improves efficiency, and another that takes you straight to "best practice" level.

Least efficient: Test cases with static values

Here, you design test cases that use fixed, hardcoded test data. For example, to enter a customer name into a field, the value in the test case contains the actual customer name.

You’ll spend a lot of time inventing test data for every unique scenario. If anything changes, you may need to update dozens (or hundreds!) of test cases.

To be clear, we're not against static values. Sometimes they make sense. For example, you can use them in a smoke test to check a very specific edge case that never changes. But, in general, we recommend that you avoid static values. It's a lengthy process, it's error-prone, and it's high-maintenance.

Efficient: Test cases that use test data in Tosca Cloud

Here, you design test cases that reference test data you store in Tosca Cloud. For example, to enter a customer name into a field, the value in the test case indicates, "Enter a random value from column X, which is in data set ABC."

Since you automate the managing and provisioning of test data, your team can focus on creating great tests, instead of coming up with test data or fixing hardcoded test data in test cases. If anything changes, you only need to update your data in one place.

However, there are some things that will still cost effort:

Alignment with business goals. Testers need to figure out business requirements and translate them into test cases. Meanwhile, QA managers and business stakeholders often struggle to understand the test suite and how individual tests connect to key objectives.
Coverage. Testers need to come up with every scenario manually, which takes time and increases the risk of missing important scenarios.

Best practice: Test cases generated out of business flows

Here, you take a different approach. Instead of creating test cases one by one, you define what we call business flows.

A business flow is a visual representation of all activities that users can perform in your application. It gives you a clear view of what users can do and how they move through your application. In a business flow, you define specific paths a user might take from one activity to another.

Once your business flow is in place, creating test cases becomes a simple, one-click operation.

In essence, this approach means most of your effort occurs during the planning phase. The visual nature of business flows makes it easy to collaborate with stakeholders and connect testing to business goals. At the same time, business flows provide a clear, actionable framework for test scenarios.

Get started

Ready to boost efficiency with Tosca Cloud? Please choose your use case: