We spend a good amount of time in designing test cases. However, the designing test data well is also quite important because it ensures complete testing coverage for all kinds of scenarios, thereby improving the quality. There could be some test data that is needed for any happy or positive path testing. Some other data could be designed for error or negative testing which is very helpful in discovering how the application performs when put in abnormal situations.


For Example, In functional testing you may need to prepare test data for the following cases.

  • Positive path data: With the development use case document as reference, this is the data generally in sync with performing the positive path scenarios.
  • Negative path data: This is data which is generally considered “invalid” with respect to the correct functional working of the code.
  • Null data: Supplying no data when the application or code expects that data.
  • Erroneous data: Determining the performance of the code when a data is supplied in an illegal format.
  • Boundary conditions data: Test data that is supplied out of index or array to determine how the code performs.

Test data plays a key role in identifying where a product or feature can completely break. Always have a practice of polling and validating the kind of data fed to the test environment in different phases of testing.


Test data management

When test data plays such an important role in assuring the quality of the product, it’s reasonable to say that its management and streamlining also plays an equally important role in Quality Assurance of any product that has to be released to the customers.