Updated March 25, 2021

Although testing involves many different stages, it’s mostly based on preparing and executing successive test cases. Tests have a strong influence on the quality of the final product. This is why it’s so important to pay attention whilst planning the process, and how it’s integrated into the rest of the development lifecycle. To ensure tight integration, we strongly recommend using Jira Software for this purpose. The Atlassian suite effectively manages complex projects with extensive collaboration. In software development, all the phases are related to each other. Connecting project goals, features, and test cases ensures a clear, consistent process for all stakeholders.

In favor of keeping your software development process consistent, it’s always better to have all its elements inside one place. When we have to deal with more complex or scattered projects, searching for particular elements takes a lot of time and can be really frustrating. Being able to see all the relations between the objects at a glance can do miracles for the project. You’ll spot the possible defects sooner and will be able to fix them, as well as immediately tell which part of the code or incorrect requirement caused their occurrence. This kind of workflow leads to the earlier release of the final, bug-free product.

Additionally, when testers store test cases separately, team access issues arise, hindering context visibility and team communication. The consultations and meetings waste time, which we can use otherwise. When our test cases are managed in the same place as requirements, plans, executions, and defects, the process is logical for each stakeholder every step on the way.

There are numerous available testing tools to choose from. Before deciding which one would work best for us, first, we have to find out which method we will follow in testing. Since we’re already using Jira, we can take one of these three paths:

Each method listed above can become a smashing success or total failure. In the end, it all depends on the project, organization specifics, and many other factors. Spreadsheets are fine for basic testing, but for growth, seek advanced solutions for constant development. Evaluate these options to find the best fit.

Despite Jira isn’t a dedicated testing tool, many teams still use it for this purpose. When a company manages projects in the Atlassian suite and storing everything inside one place significantly improves the process. Jira Software simplifies communication between and across teams. When someone modifies a task or issue, all people involved can see it. It’s a dream come true not only for managers who must continuously oversee the workflow but also for various team members who don’t necessarily enjoy running from desk to desk for questions.

Nevertheless, when it comes to testing, Jira Software has its limitations. Although it has a few issue types to choose from, like Bugs or Epics, it doesn’t have anything intended strictly for tests. Custom issue types can be created, but it’s always an additional activity, which takes extra time. In this case, an admin has to set up and prepare each issue type by adding custom fields, putting them into screens, and practically built the whole workflow from scratch. Secondly, test cases in Jira once marked Done can’t be used again, which is practically inevitable in software testing. A test case may need re-execution, such as for different environments or regression testing.

Standalone Jira Software displays direct issue relations but lacks a consolidated view of indirect connections. Tracking requirement-test case-test plan coverage isn’t clear. Sharing progress or results requires meetings and reports. Jira is a good testing foundation but lacks some critical functionalities

Source: Avisi

The most common choice is specialized test management software for efficient testing. Integration with tools like Jira is crucial to blend testing with the team’s workflow. If we choose this option, we can expect the tool to be well-suited for different testing tasks. That’s the most valuable advantage of a standalone software solution. The testing process we establish should be fairly easy to achieve if we pick the right solution.

There are many standalone test management tools on the market, so picking the right one can be difficult. Looking for the most suitable one and browsing through demos, POCs, and documentation lectures can be time-consuming. And once we finally make a decision, we’ll have another tool in our set and need to offer the end-users a lot of training to learn how to use the solution efficiently. Also, it may take even more time to reach full efficiency while the team is getting accustomed to the tool. In the end, there’s the matter of integration with our current setup as well. Using many different tools might affect global monitoring of our work progress and make keeping the data actual very challenging.

Testing extensions for Jira are the solution to all the challenges of software development teams. On the Atlassian Marketplace, there are over 160 test management apps to choose from. First of all, we can decide on a separate tool, which integrates with Jira or on an add-on. Both give Jira the functionalities, which make test case management more efficient than in the case of standalone Jira. The right tool offers advanced customization and tailor-made features for testers. Moreover, installing the app is easier for admins than adapting plain Jira for testing.

By advanced customization, we understand a couple of things.

First of all, apps for test management have built-in issue types for testing objects, such as test cases, test plans, test executions, and defects. Secondly, the relations between the objects are traceable, as the process is consistently executed inside one place. There are tools that include requirements management as well, and this enables performing the whole software project management in Jira from the very beginning.

Connecting possible defects to the elements of the initial part of the process may lead to very useful conclusions for the project, such as which of the planned features of our product to-be generate most of the bugs. Designers of testing apps took care of the reporting, too: each app has the reports displaying the current progress and statuses ready to present to the stakeholders anytime we want. The great thing about the reports is that they are real-time and update automatically, which means they immediately show all the modifications made by the team.

The overall user experience is one of the most important characteristics of almost any software. The interface quality impacts the time users require to learn the tool and use it with maximum efficiency. Choosing a Jira app for your test management solution ensures that our team continues to work in a familiar environment. If your team currently uses Jira and other Atlassian tools daily for various tasks, extending the issue tracker will maintain user comfort and readiness. Training will be necessary but straightforward. The team needs to understand app functionalities and the testing process, but it’s just a fraction of what a new tool requires.

Managers choose test management solutions to verify if they match their planned test process. Testing activities demand specific features from the solution. What was a major disadvantage when using pure Jira for test management is now brought to the table by the dedicated apps. 

The Atlassian Marketplace is the right place to look for apps, and we can be sure to find at least a few great ones that help with test management. Of course, each solution is different, and we need to decide which one will suit us best, but we can be sure to find basic testing functionalities in every app. We’ll be able to create effective test cases, plan testing cycles, report on progress, perform transparent defect tracking, and more.

One of the most important pros of using Jira apps is that they integrate with the Jira environment itself and all its features. Most of the time, we can use the rich set of modification options to enhance your testing experience. 

Jira is an advanced issue-tracking solution that offers users a wide range of options for customizing the way it operates. If the app is heavily based on Jira issue types, bear in mind that we can create your own custom fields to store additional data or configure the workflow including all its mechanisms (conditions, post functions, etc.).

Other apps add their own modules or views to the project. If that’s the case for your choice, it’s worth a while to verify if it is well integrated with the Jira interface. By making sure it’s possible to track relations between testing objects and Jira issues, we successfully bring the whole project into one tool and build a continuous process clear for all the stakeholders. Later on, to improve our test results reporting, we can configure a dashboard with gadgets of our choice and set up permission and notification schemes for better control of our project. This is just a tiny part of the Jira feature set that you can use for enhancing test management.

In the end, there is always the matter of integration between various tools our team uses for performing different tasks. The more tools are there in our setup, the more complicated the work becomes. Dealing with different interfaces, various sources of data, separate maintenance processes, and methods of carrying out the integration can become quite problematic. Extending Jira with an app guarantees the best integration. We have one point of management for both project tracking and testing activities. This is a great advantage, since we keep all the data in one place and there is no need to switch tools for performing different tasks, be it daily work or technical, maintenance tasks.

The most common way of setting up Jira for tests is by using Stories and Sub-tasks. It’s good for the start or smaller projects because even the beginners will understand how it works without an additional explanation. When we add a test case, in its description list your test steps and indicate what results you expect from every action. Then, it’s time to create sub-tasks for each test run and adequately label them with the outcomes, the versions, and the assignee responsible. This way would require adding a dedicated testing project to our instance by the admin. Otherwise, User Stories generated for tests will affect the developers’ sprint scopes, burndown charts, and other ways to measure their work effectiveness. This is a big flaw in this solution.

If so, we may ask our Jira admin to create a specific issue type for test cases. This might work even inside the development project, where we can exclude it from the sprint scope and reports. However, creating an issue type from scratch implies designing a workflow, adding some custom fields, and configuring screens, which isn’t too good for the instance from the admin’s perspective. Using pure Jira means working on a single issue type, too. We won’t tell test cases from test plans and executions at a glance.

Creating a new Jira issue type for testing. Source: TestLodge

If we already use certain apps for Jira, we can try out our Issue Templates or Dynamic Forms apps as a workaround to optimize test case management. Even without custom issue types, Issue Templates for Jira can enable the creation of reusable test suites. After generating a test plan template and saving it as a User Story with test cases listed as Sub-tasks, we’ll be able to execute them in every other project in Jira. On the other hand, Dynamic Forms for Jira’s feature called Bundled Fields lets us create a transparent table for test steps, which makes the test case view clear and easy to understand.

The fourth option is installing a dedicated testing app from the Atlassian Marketplace. As we know, there are quite a lot of them available on the market, and each one has its pros and cons. The Requirements and Test Management for Jira (RTM) by Deviniti stands out yet at the beginning, as it enables plug-and-play configuration. Not without the cause, it’s known as the most intuitive test management tool. The friendly UI creates a familiar work environment. It consolidates all aspects of a software project—requirements, features, test cases, and defects—for transparent management.

Atlassian’s Jira is a great tool for software project management (and more!). The modification capabilities of this solution are outstanding and allow implementation of different processes. Still, Jira is not an all-in-one tool. Using Jira for testing is a smart move because it will require much less time for the users to get accustomed to it, as we’re not introducing a new piece of software. The user interface and core functionalities are familiar to users, so there’s no need for extra training for the tool. Just configure the project, explain the process to the team, and we’re good to go.

Even though this is a quick and simple way of setting test management in place, in most cases it’s not going to be enough. Jira doesn’t include dedicated functionalities for creating effective test cases, tracking their execution, or generating dedicated reports. We often find it inconvenient to implement many test management features as workarounds while using Jira for daily testing.

Here’s how QA teams can benefit from using Jira features for managing tests but not all of them are ready to use out of the box

Avoid executing each stage of our process in a separate tool. Many teams make the mistake of excluding their requirements from the rest of the software development. It’s a risky move, as it can cause chaos and makes it practically impossible to fully track the relations between the objects. Only this way we can always make sure if all of the initial expectations are executed, though. If we keep this in mind, we can be sure that not only our customers, business analysts, and testers will appreciate it. The developers’ work will also become much easier, as the total number of omissions and ‘human errors’ will significantly decrease. This means less coding and going back and forth all the time.

It’s just another reason why we recommend using testing apps for Jira so much. They support verifying relations: requirements to test cases, test cases to plans, executions, and defects. RTM for Jira provides two dedicated reports: Requirement Coverage and Traceability Matrix. These help ensure full requirement coverage with related test cases, plans, executions, and defect associations.

Most people are visualizers. They understand and remember well-illustrated things much better. Structuring tasks also helps organize the workflow and aids an order in successive steps. This is why in RTM for Jira we created a transparent tree structure for all testing objects, including test cases. Thanks to this feature, we can group our test cases per category, assignee, feature, environment, and practically by any parameter that comes to our head. This will make every part of the process clear and easy to divide among the team members.

Another tool that perfectly supports test management is TestFLO – Test Management for Jira. Integrated with Jira, it allows us to create comprehensive test plans. In addition, thanks to TestFLO, we can generate extensive reports on the entire test process.

When describing test cases and test steps, it’s crucial to always have in mind that the better we explain them at the beginning, the more time we save. The time economization usually means also savings in the budget, so this case is really important for the whole company. Attentively explained actions reduce the number of questions, appointments, and e-mails from the others involved in the process. There are some useful tips we should take into consideration if we want to write good test cases for our team:

Regularly monitor testing progress and review test case execution statuses. This enables us to estimate time remaining for testing, identify time-consuming test cases, and assess assignee efficiency. These insights inform workflow improvements and enhance planning during meetings. When it comes to meetings, RTM for Jira supports easy on-the-eye reporting, which is understandable for all the stakeholders, so we don’t have to worry about uncomfortable questions anymore. Thanks to real-time reports, you can prepare yourself at any minute.

As we said earlier, every software development project requires a well-developed test management process, and every test management process requires the right tools. Sure, we can start with simple and informal spreadsheets as our testing command center. As our software grows, a more mature process and advanced tools will become necessary. The abundance of test management solutions can make the decision challenging. While it may seem complex at first, Jira testing is a worthwhile option to explore for its benefits.

Incorporating test cases speeds up development, enhances collaboration, and ensures traceability between requirements, test cases, and plans.

A great solution is bringing our software development along with tests to the place where we manage our project, divide tasks, and describe issues: Jira Software. Nevertheless, the standalone Jira is usually not enough. We recommend extending it with a dedicated test case management app. This opens up new testing possibilities while ensuring adherence to universal rules for creating effective test cases, providing numerous advantages.