6 steps to set up requirements management and testing in Jira

Updated on January 25th, 2023

The testing process is composed of multiple stages and involves work of every team member, including analysts, testers, and developers. No matter how many people participate in the project and tasks, management of such a process requires a well-organized environment that allows tracking every step of the way from end to end. As we learned previously, Jira seems to be the perfect choice for the job being a tool created for teamwork coordination, especially in software development. Imagine how much easier your team members’ life would be if all actions from collecting the requirements to reporting the defects were tracked in one place! While Jira is considered by many only as a project management tool, there are Marketplace apps tightly integrated with it and designed to make the testing journey more effective. One of them is our Requirements and Test Management for Jira Cloud (RTM).

Why choose RTM as a tool for testing in Jira

If you’ve decided on bringing your testing inside Jira, congratulations! There are a lot of benefits of doing so, and Requirements and Test Management for Jira is here to help you discover them all. First of all, our app’s interface is designed exclusively for Jira Software. That means you and your team can work with an already known solution, which doesn’t require any special training, and it takes only 3 steps to configure the app:

  • adding RTM issue types to the project;
  • adding fields to the screens;
  • granting permissions to the testing team.

Then we can start our testing adventure right away!

RTM provides a hierarchical organization of all objects in folders and subfolders and makes gathering requirements as essential as setting up test cases. Another key point is that the app allows you to seamlessly link requirements, test cases, and defects to Epics and user stories, as well as search for them like for regular Jira issues. This level of integration gives you and your team the possibility of tracking the whole software project inside your Atlassian suite.

Discover RTM for Jira for yourself!

If your company uses Jira for project management and you wish to include gathering requirements and testing in the rest of the software development process, try Requirements and Test Management for Jira with your team.

Setting up Requirements and Test Management for Jira in 6 steps

1. Create requirements in Jira

In the Requirements module, on the Details tab, we define the type of Requirements. You can choose among UI Requirement, Functional RequirementNon-Functional Requirement, and Business Requirement issue types. The next step is adding a Summary defining what your requirement is about. Further custom fields aren’t obligatory but remember: the more details we add, the clearer our intentions will be for the other team members. That’s why it’s a good idea to include a short description and all basic information like AssigneeComponents, and Labels. It’s important to fill the Assignee field because it determines the person responsible for the particular requirement. Usually, it’s the Product Owner, but depending on a project or a product, it could also be the Test Analyst or the Test Manager.

Just like all app objects, requirements in RTM are displayed in a transparent tree-view structureIn order to manage them, we click the folder icon and create folders and subfolders as we see fit. Elements on the tree view provide a possibility of drag and dropping and customizing. That kind of transparency will surely help organize the requirement management process from the very beginning.

2. Link test cases to requirements in Jira

When requirements are in order, the next step is to create test cases. It can be done directly from the Test Cases tab on a requirement view, or in the Test Cases module. The creation screen on the Details tab looks very similar to the previous one, except there are more fields to fill in. Here we can define RTM Environment (like Android or iOS), Fix version/s, and Estimated Time.

Then we proceed to create Steps for the Test Case with Preconditions and Actions to take. The Steps panel is fully customizable: we can rename and define columns as well as their size, drag and drop elements and combine the Steps into groups. It’s equally important to write in Inputs and Expected results. If it suits your team better, it’s also possible to import data from a CSV file. That functionality helps to save time spent on retyping steps from Excel spreadsheets.

On the Relations tab, we’ll find the details concerning all the connections between objects: which requirements are covered by related test cases and which Jira Epics and/or Jira user stories contain the features that require testing.

3. Check Tests Traceability in Jira

The Traceability Matrix shows all types of relations on a special screen. Thanks to this functionality, verification of the whole structure of objects is far more efficient. It’s worth remembering that what is shown on the X and Y axes is fully customizable with JQL so that we can choose which objects we’d like to display. RTM Traceability Matrix allows checking the coverage of Requirements by Test Cases, making sure that all Test Cases are included in Test Plans and Test Executions, verifying the Defects linked with Test Cases and Executions, and confirming that Test Plans are completed in Test Executions. Data from the Traceability Matrix panel can also be exported to a CSV file.

4. Create a test plan in Jira

After adding all the Requirements and Test Cases to the project, we create a Test Plan. On the Details and Test Cases tabs, we describe our Test Plan and decide which cases we would like to include in them. It’s worth mentioning that the Test Plans are reusable, so we can re-execute them or just particular Test Cases (that option automatically creates a new Test Plan for the selected ones). Each Test Case can also be executed as a Test Plan from the Test Cases module. What needs to be done is choosing one or several Test Cases from the list and starting execution by clicking Execute as new TP.

5. Track test execution in Jira

The Test Executions module is designed to follow the Test Plan progress. The multi-colored progress bar at the top of the screen shows the percentage of completed Test Cases and their statuses, whereas the table below presents detailed Results of Test Cases, Assignees, Priority, and other information if any was set up manually before. The module also contains the Test Cases Execution screen which we can see after choosing any Test Case from the list. This allows us to see the details of each Test Case’s realization and simplifies following which steps were passed, failed, or where there were difficulties.

RTM has also the dedicated Test Execution and Test Case Execution reports, so you can verify their progress on a single screen or export data to a .csv file, if necessary. When creating the reports, you can filter the results by Project, Test Plan, Execution, RTM Environment, TCE Created Date, and TCE Assignee. Both TE and TCE are generated as a chart with the transparent table below, which makes it possible to check the details of each particular Test Execution or Test Case, depending on the report.

Test Case Execution Report based on DEMO-279 chart. Chart shows percentage of tasks: to do, in progress, fail, blocked, passed with restrictions
Test Case Execution Report in RTM for Jira

Test Execution Report based on Demo-279: To do, in progress, pass, fail, blocked, passed with restrictions
Test Execution Report in RTM for Jira

6. Report the test results in Jira

If during the execution a Test Case turns out to be failed, it requires creating a Defect. To make the communication between developers and testers easier, we enabled adding comments and attachments to the appropriate Steps, like screenshots or log files. Like all the other objects in RTM, Defects can also be linked to other elements of the testing and development process so that it’s easier to track failures and find out why particular actions didn’t succeed. Combining Jira and RTM makes requirements management smooth and easy.

The Requirement Coverage report makes it possible to confirm if our requirements are covered by Test Cases, Test Plans, Test Executions, Test Cases Executions, and linked to related Defects. Thanks to that, it will be easier for your team members to spot possible omissions and take care of them before the final product will be released.

Key takeaway

The quality of software testing relies largely on a tool that we use. Requirements and Test Management for Jira app allows you and your team to seamlessly implement it into your software development process. Our app is fully integrated with Jira Software, which allows us to do the following:

  • track both development and testing progress in a single place;
  • organize objects in each module into a customizable tree-structured view;
  • seamlessly link objects to each other and to Jira Issues as well;
  • create reusable Test Plans;
  • prevent bugs on the “left side” of the project.
The app is fully integrated with Jira Software: Alanyze Requirements, Write Test Cases, Check Traceability and Coverage, Design Test Plans, Execute Test Plans, Set statuses of Test Case Executions, Report Defects and test results

You and your team might already be familiar with Jira as a project-tracking tool. The app’s well-known UI will help you quickly adjust to the look and feel and does not require any additional training for the team. Now you can focus on delivering the highest quality software.

Katarzyna Kornaga

Katarzyna is a Content Specialist, responsible for writing on the Deviniti blog. As an SEO enthusiast, most of all she values helpful, unique content where users can find answers to their questions. When not writing, you can find her at the theatre, at home with a good non-fiction book, or passing on city streets on her bike.

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