Are you still slogging on to excel sheets to manage test cases? Gone are the days when excel sheets were the only tool available to manage test cases. With the outburst of JIRA software, 66% of testers today leverage it to their benefit. So, why should you lag behind?
Going forward in this article we will discuss, everything that you should know to leverage JIRA Software for Test Case Management.
A quick overview of JIRA software
JIRA software is a product of Atlassian Corporation, an Australian enterprise software company. It is largely used for issue tracking, bug tracking, and project management. But many teams are now using it as a Test case manager as it allows testers and developers to remain at one platform. But, how can you use it for Test case management? Let’s check it out.
There are two ways that can help you to use JIRA for Test case management by:
1. Configuring JIRA for Test case management
2. Incorporating testing tools with JIRA
But before moving forward let’s have a look at various features of JIRA that assist test case management.
- JIRA can help in manual testing and is a great tool for it.
- Associated with defects and requirements.
- Supports issue types such as user story and test case.
- Offers multiple fixes for different versions.
- Supports both manual and automatic issue assignment.
- JIRA Workflow has the power to control developers, QA and tester actions.
- Can incorporate source code.
- Offers reporting facility.
- Easy to customize.
1. How to Customize JIRA for TCM?
You can customize JIRA software for test management in either of the ways:
- Using the “User story”
- Adding a “Test Case” issue
You can configure your JIRA software for test case management by using the User Story. Here’s how to proceed with it:
- Generate a user story to act as a test case.
- Further, add subtasks referring back to the user story (your subtasks here act as test cases or test runs)
- If all the subtasks pass, then your user story is good to go for production.
This approach raises a few challenges. The main challenges that you can face are:
- When you have to reuse the test cases: In JIRA software if you finish working on any issue, it is marked done and is closed. To reopen it and to convert it into the test case format requires a lot of efforts and maintenance overhead. So if you want to use any test case again, it becomes very complex.
- When you have to align test cases: If you have multiple test cases that link to several user stories, it gets very difficult to align them.
Creating a Test Case Issue Type
You can configure your JIRA software for test case management by creating a Test Case issue type. Here’s how to proceed with it:
- Add a test case issue type.
- Add the required steps for testing.
- Assign your test case as parent issue.
- Create and label subtasks as “Test Run”.
- Add outcomes, the assignee to run the test cases, the affected version under the “Test Run” subtask.
But creating a test case issue type possesses few challenges for the user. Here are the few challenges that can be faced by you:
- When you have to reuse the test cases: As discussed above reusing test cases is a very complex process.
- When you have to rerun test cases: JIRA software requires you to add subtasks every time you have to run a test case.
- When you have to create coverage reports: In JIRA software all the subtasks are mostly assigned under one issue. It is not possible to group various test runs to different configurations and to create a coverage report.
2. Incorporating testing tools with JIRA
Since JIRA is not custom made for test case management it possesses many limitations. To devoid it of its limitations, you can incorporate various testing tools with JIRA.
You can add testing functionalities to JIRA by the following two ways:
1. Using Ad-ons
2. By external integration of testing tools
- Using Ad-ons
Various Ad-ons are available on Atlassian Marketplace that helps enhance the functionalities of JIRA as a test case manager.
Eg: Zephyr for JIRA and Xray for JIRA promotes manual test execution.
qTest Scenario and Behave Pro assist TDD, BDD, and ATDD testing
- Integrating test case management tools to JIRA
Test case management is one of the major tasks of STLC. Using an apt test case management tool can save you both on time and efforts. A number of test case management tools are available in the markets that can be externally integrated with JIRA, resulting in better test case management.
How can test case management tools help you?
- They can help you to consolidate all your executions while you can also use JIRA.
- They can help you eliminate one of the biggest drawbacks of JIRA – reusing test cases. With test management tools you can reuse executions and help in better execution setup.
- They enhance the capabilities of JIRA by keeping the complete execution history inside JIRA.
- They permit numerous test runs of the test cases with different configurations, assignees, results, etc.
Though deploying dedicated test case management system with JIRA offers the best experience. It also possesses some drawbacks. You can eliminate it by using the solution that offers the most optimal integration experience based on your requirements.
Conclusion
The choice to pick one of the above-mentioned methods depends entirely on your requirements. We have curated a chart to help you judge your preference.
