Updated by Tatiana Glazkova on June 7th, 2021

In general, Jira is considered a project management software, but not everyone knows, that it can serve as a functional testing tool as well. While Jira may not be a dedicated testing solution, it’s an integrated platform where all the projects, users, and workflows can be managed in a logical and consistent way. Instead of storing requirements in a separate file, testing and defect tracking in the test management tool, and preparing project schedules on the side, your teams can keep all the data in a single place. And that’s a huge advantage. Here are other essential benefits of using Jira as a test management tool.

The biggest problem with separate testing apps is that usually teams are forced to get ready with the data, manage team members and organize workflows externally. Moving the process Jira can cover all user’s needs and is easy to implement – you just get it up and run it in minutes. 

Given such a wide range of functionalities, Jira offers a cost-effective entry to its platform. Compare it with any other tool designed exclusively for test management, and you’ll see that using Jira for work turns out to be a surprisingly economic choice. Imagine how much more efficient it would be to manage your whole software project from just one place.

Considering the number of stages and team members involved, test management relies on well-designed and flexible workflows. Tracking test progress in Jira makes the collaboration between all analysts, testers, and developers much easier. If you decide on implementing testing processes into Jira, you’ll provide them with a possibility to work in a single, well-known tool, where all requirements, test cases, defects, Epics, and user stories can be seamlessly linked to each other. Workflows are fully customizable so that everyone could make the most of them.

Keeping all the steps of the testing and development process in one tool makes it easier to visualize and track all relations between the objects such as requirements, test cases, defects, Jira issues, and more. You can not only store all information that is easily accessible for your team members on a single platform but also ensure far deeper traceability than simple requirements-test mapping by using Jira integrated tools such as Confluence. 

Jira offers a transparent, user-friendly interface, where apps are intuitive and easy to become familiar with. That explains why it’s used by at least 80% of Fortune 500 companies. If your teams work with Jira on project management and development tasks, it makes it perfect to adapt an already known and deeply integrated tool for test management as well. Thanks to implementing such a solution, it won’t be necessary to invest in any extra training and that means you’ll not only be saving money but also time.

In the Jira environment, all related issues, requirements, and test cases are clearly defined and connected with each other. Project management in Jira allows integrating all actions from analyzing requirements to reporting defects and getting feedback. Your team will surely appreciate continuity and transparency in executing test plans, managing code repositories, and simply getting more tasks done in a shorter time.

If Jira’s basic functionalities are not enough for your test team, there are many apps available on the Atlassian Marketplace, written to help teams manage a testing process. You can choose from over 166 apps that can offer your team the exact features that it needs.

Testing is a constant battle against bugs, so we developed two applications that track the entire process of test management in Jira at a highly integrated level. They are TestFLO – Test Management for Jira and Requirements and Test Management for Jira (RTM). Let’s have a look at them in detail.

TestFLO is a fully customizable test management solution that helps you to go through the entire test process and track it in Jira from start to finish. This highly integrated app uses custom fields and workflows to support your team with executing even the most complex testing processes. Being fully flexible, TestFLO lets you keep test repository, test execution, and requirements in separate Jira projects or combine all those elements in one place, depending on which solution fits your and your team’s needs best.

Designing tests with TestFLO is easy thanks to the Preconditions field with a reusable repository of preconditions and customizable Steps field with the ability to change the columns or define your own step statuses. When executing a Test Case, a tester can also add comments, attachments, and defects in single steps.

Test Cases are gathered in Test Plans as a set of tests. You can freely execute them in no particular order or force execution using one of the many advanced workflow configurations provided by the app. If there’s a need to perform another cycle of tests from the same Test Plan, you can create the next iteration based on the selected strategy – all Test Cases, only failed, ones not passed, or your custom selection. The overview of all Test Plan iterations can be analyzed with the Test Plan Iterations Report.

Test Plan Iterations Report

To have a bird’s eye view of test execution progress and relations, you can use built-in reports such as Test Plan Execution Report or Requirements Traceability Report. 

Test Plan Execution Report will help you check the current state of the tests according to your need for granularity. The report can be based on Test Case status or Test Case steps progress and additional filtering will help you narrow down your report results even better.

Test Plan Execution Report 

On the other hand, with the Requirements Traceability Report, you can track the full relationship between requirements, tests, their execution, and reported defects. With this report, verifying the full picture of this part of the process is transparent and becomes much simpler.

Requirements Traceability Report

TestFLO is enriched with a Test Automation module thanks to which you can boost your test process and adapt full continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) practices. This module lets you trigger CI Server tests from Jira and when all tests are completed, gather and send results to Jira where TestFLO creates Test Cases in Test Plan based on a given test result. Thanks to this, you don’t have to change the context between CI Server and Jira to run tests. 

Test Automation overview

Requirements and Test Management for Jira (RTM) is a fully functional test management tool that brings the whole software project, including requirements, development and reporting, right inside Jira. It collects all data in one place and makes it possible to link Requirements, Test Cases, and Defects directly to Jira issues. These functions lead to a complete Test Plans preparation that contains all Test Cases. The Test Executions with the same structure as reusable Test Plans let you monitor the statuses of particular actions. In the end, you get the Test Execution view with all the defects that occurred during the process.

One of the most catching features in RTM is a tree folder structure and navigation modules. A default All folder summarizes all elements within the tree. You can categorize folders, for example, sprint, component, assignee, or any other parameter, making your projects clearer for all your team members. Such a solution allows to easily set understandable requirement-test case relations and navigate through all the elements in a coordinated way to track their correct implementation.

RTM – Requirements – Test Management – Categorized folders and relations

Full traceability of relations between the objects is also a great advantage of the RTM app. The Traceability Matrix shows all relations on a special panel, which makes the verification of their statuses far more simple and efficient. Thanks to this functionality, you can: 

What’s more, what is shown on the X and Y axes can be customizable with JQL, so that you can set the filters to fit your needs best. 

(TPJ) Functional Requirements/ (TPJ) Test Cases

Another report that can be generated in RTM is a Requirement Coverage report. It allows verifying whether the requirements are covered by Test Cases, Test Plans, Test Executions, Test Case Executions and Defects for a given Project, Issue type, Fix version, Component, RTM Environment, and Assignee. You can decide which fields will be presented in the report by clicking on Preferences. This way you can make sure that nothing was accidentally missed during the process, which leads to releasing a complete and bug-free product in the end.

Requirement Test Coverage Report

Jira is not a dedicated test management tool, but as it turns out to be, as it can be customized with the applications. Assuming that Jira is created to deal with workflows and data management, it is a great foundation for an effective testing progress organization or even more. There is no doubt, that using a single platform for tracking development, requirements, and tests is a smart move, not only for the benefit of your team but also for the economy of your company.

Deviniti is an Atlassian Platinum Solution Enterprise Partner and a Platinum Marketplace Partner. We’ve developed two Jira add-ons for requirements and test management, as well as dozens of applications for other purposes available on the Atlassian Marketplace. If you’re interested in acquiring more knowledge about Jira Software as a test management solution, check out this video tutorial series on our YouTube.