Test Planning

Organize, prioritize, and plan your tests from one place

Your test list is more than a record of what's running. It's where your entire experimentation program lives. Every test idea, draft, live experiment, and completed result sits in a single list that you can search, filter, group, and edit inline.

This guide covers how to find tests quickly, how to use planning fields like Priority, Impact, and Effort to build a structured backlog, and how to shape the list around the way your business works.

Previously, tests were separated into tabs by status. All of your tests now appear in a single list. Use the Status filter, or group your list by Status, to see the same breakdown with a lot more flexibility.

Finding tests

As your testing program grows, so does your list. Search, filters, and grouping help you get to the right tests fast.

Search

Use the search bar at the top of the list to find any test by name. Search works across your entire test history, so past experiments are always a few keystrokes away.

Filters

Filters narrow your list to exactly the tests you care about. You can filter by any test attribute, including:

• Status: Idea, Ready, Scheduled, Live, Paused, Ended

• Test type: Template, Theme, Price, API, Page

• Priority: Critical, High, Medium, Low

• Goal metric: CVR, AOV, RPV, CTR, ATC

• Site area: Global, Homepage, PDP, PLP, Cart, Landing page, Navigation, Other

• Campaign, Tags, and Implemented

Shoplift remembers your view. If you apply a filter and navigate away, you'll return to the list exactly where you left off, so there's no need to rebuild your view every time.

Frequently used filters are available as quick filters, so your most common views are always one click away.

Grouping

Grouping reorganizes your list into sections so you can see your program from different angles. Group your tests by:

• Status: recreate the classic pipeline view of ideas, drafts, live tests, and results

• Campaign: see how work is distributed across your campaigns

• Site area: spot which parts of your store are getting attention, and which aren't

• Priority: turn your list into a ranked backlog

• Goal metric: see which KPIs your program is focused on

• Test type: separate template, theme, price, API, and page tests

When your list is grouped by campaign, you can create a new campaign or rename an existing one directly from the group header, without navigating to a separate page. Learn more about campaigns.

Planning fields

These fields turn your test list from a log of experiments into a planning tool. Every field below is inline editable. Click the cell in the list view and set the value, without opening the test.

Priority

Rank the tests in your backlog: Critical, High, Medium, or Low. New tests start with no priority set, so it's always clear which ideas have been triaged and which haven't.

Impact

Score the potential upside of a test from 1 to 5. How much would this move the needle if the variant wins? A homepage hero test on your highest-traffic page might be a 5. A footer tweak might be a 1.

Effort

Score how much work a test takes to build and launch, from 1 to 5. A copy change is a 1. A redesigned product page template that needs design and development time might be a 5.

Impact and Effort work best together. High-impact, low-effort tests are your quick wins, so sort or filter by these two fields to decide what to run next. This is the same logic behind common prioritization frameworks like ICE (Impact, Confidence, and Ease) and PIE (Potential, Importance, and Ease), built directly into your test list.

Implemented

Track whether a winning change actually made it to your live store: Implemented or Not implemented. This closes the loop on the question every stakeholder eventually asks: "we found a winner, but did we ship it?"

If you end a test in a way that automatically launches the change to your store, Shoplift sets the test to Implemented for you.

Custom tags

Tags let you organize tests around the way your business works. Anyone on your team can create a tag by typing it into the Tags field, and each test can carry as many tags as you need.

Because tags are free-form, they can capture whatever your workflow requires:

• Link tests to external tools: JIRA-123

• Track internal workflow states: Requires Approval

• Mark themes of work: Q4 Holiday, Mobile UX, Pricing Research

Every column at a glance

Alongside the planning fields above, the list includes columns covering each test's setup and performance.

Column	What it shows
Name	The test's name. Always visible.
Status	Where the test is in its lifecycle: Idea, Ready, Scheduled, Live, Paused, or Ended.
Hypothesis	The hypothesis behind the test: what you expect to happen and why.
Type	The test type: Template, Theme, Price, API, or Page.
Goal metric	The primary metric the test is measured against: CVR, AOV, RPV, CTR, or ATC.
Site area	The part of your store the test targets: Global, Homepage, PDP, PLP, Cart, Landing page, Navigation, or Other.
Campaign	The campaign the test belongs to, if any.
Visitors	How many visitors have entered the test.
Lift	The variant's performance against the original on the test's goal metric.
Progress	How far along a live test is.
Priority	Critical, High, Medium, or Low.
Impact / Effort	Your 1 to 5 planning scores.
Tags	Any custom tags applied to the test.
Implemented	Whether the winning change has been rolled out to your live store.

Create tests from the list

You can capture a new test idea without leaving the list view. There are two ways to do it: the Add test button at the top of the page, or the Add test row at the end of the table. Either way, give the test a name and it's saved as an Idea you can flesh out later. This is a fast way to get ideas out of your head, or out of a brainstorm, and into your backlog.

If your list is grouped, new tests created inside a group inherit that group's attribute automatically. Add a test under the High priority group and it's created with High priority. When grouped by campaign, each campaign's group has its own create test option, and tests created there are automatically assigned to that campaign.

Customize your columns

Shape the table to match what you care about:

• Show or hide columns to keep the view focused. The test name is always visible.

• Drag to reorder columns so your most important fields sit up front.

Your column setup is saved, so the list stays the way you arranged it.

Manage tests from the list

Common test actions are available from the ⋮ menu on each row, so you can manage your program without opening each test:

• View report: jump straight to the test's results

• Rename: change the test's name

• Duplicate: a fast way to iterate on a previous idea

• Remove from campaign: detach the test from its campaign

• Delete: remove the test

You can also assign a test to a campaign directly from the Campaign field on the row. To schedule when a test pauses, resumes, or ends, see scheduling tests.

Use cases

A few ways teams put these tools together.

Build and groom a backlog

Capture every idea in the list the moment it comes up, then triage in bulk: set Priority, score Impact and Effort, and tag anything that needs review. When it's time to launch, filter to your untested High and Critical priority ideas and sort by Effort to find the quick wins.

Run a weekly testing standup

Group the list by Status for an instant pipeline view of what's live, what's ready to launch, and what just finished. Because every field is editable inline, you can update priorities and add ideas during the meeting instead of taking notes to enter later.

Audit your test coverage

Group by Site area to see where your experimentation has been concentrated. If your PDP group is packed and your Cart group is empty, you've found your next opportunity. Grouping by Goal metric answers the same question for your KPIs.

Close the loop on winners

Filter by Implemented: Not implemented on ended tests to catch winning variants that never made it to production. This is one of the most common, and most costly, gaps in a testing program.

Mirror your team's workflow

Use custom tags to represent stages or references that live outside Shoplift, like Requires Approval, Waiting on Design, or JIRA-123, so your test list stays in sync with how your team already operates.

Still need help?

Contact the Shoplift support team if you have questions about organizing or planning your tests.

Related articles

• Campaigns

• Scheduling tests

• Choose the right test type

• Understanding your results