This article was updated on February 2, 2021 by Magdalena Korgul, Content Specialist at Deviniti.

Software development is a complicated activity that consists of many different stages, one of which is test management. Nowadays companies constantly improve their testing processes, having in mind the quality assurance of their final product. As the field is constantly growing, there are more and more conferences, meetups, online groups, books, and publications dedicated to software testing. Being a project management platform, Atlassian’s Jira doesn’t include special built-in functionalities to handle tests, nevertheless, that doesn’t mean you can’t perform tests in Jira. But how to successfully bring your test management into Jira? That’s what we’ll discuss in this article.

…and why should we draw so much attention to it? In the first place, well-organized testing is extremely important for developing high-quality, complex software. It consists of numerous activities that combined altogether create a complete, end-to-end process. Being a substantial part of software development, tests should be performed in the same environment as the rest of the activities. There is no single definition of test management since many companies and experts approach this topic differently. One thing is certain: considering limited human and time resources as well as project deadlines, the testing process needs to be managed in a well-organized way. The ultimate goal is establishing predictable and reliable tests that allow delivering of high-quality products on time. Testing is composed of creating test cases to requirements gathered before, test planning, test execution cycles, defect tracking, reporting, and much more. It also aims at measuring the results and focuses on constant improvements – all that to achieve the project’s goals in the end. 

Test case management focuses on defining an adequate process and constantly improving it in order to perform accurate tests, according to specific project needs. When adjusting testing to the project, there are many conditions that should be taken into account, like for example users participating and their permissions, the number, types, and way of structuring requirements, as well as relations between objects. All the phases of tests lead to releasing software that is bug-free and offers an excellent user experience. As it is generally known, the quality of the system is the key for modern software products – that’s why you need your test management to be fully integrated with development. Testing is often considered a bottleneck by development teams due to its non-linear nature and time consumption. But don’t worry: well-organized management of particular stages reduces the chance of exceeding deadlines and budgets.

As it was mentioned before, Jira test management, and testing in general, is a complex process that relies on the following parts depending on each other. Each activity should be taken into account when it comes to designing a complete testing process, as they all have different purposes and focus on different aspects:

Test management is a continuous process, strictly related to others that are equally important. If we want to establish effective test management, then we should remember that all relevant areas have to be maintained. In the end, we want the whole software development process to be complete.

It’s important to realize that Jira as such was originally created for bug tracking. For this reason, it seems logical to implement the testing process, which in the first place aims at finding and fixing bugs, into your favorite Atlassian suite. You can achieve that in several ways. The first and most basic option is Jira without any dedicated testing software. It allows to perform the process, but although it is possible to execute manual testing using only Jira basic functionalities, you’ll have to deal with the lack of a test repository, reports, structured test steps, and progress tracking. If you just need to have a blueprint that something was tested, pure Jira will do the trick, but for more complex projects, it’s not going to be enough. This is where two other options come to the rescue: standalone test management tools or dedicated apps, which provide advanced features.

External tools allow to establish a professional test management process and use different features designed especially for testing. Almost every software of that type allows writing Test Cases, tracking their progress, creating reports, and more. The disadvantage of this solution is the level of integration with Jira. Usually, it’s quite limited, as the traceability between Jira issues and the test objects in the test management software isn’t satisfactory or even impossible to achieve. Moreover, it takes time before the users get to know the new tool and all its functionalities. As development teams usually don’t even have access to dedicated testing software, they can just see the reported bugs without any context.

That’s why the last and probably the best option is installing a testing app designed exclusively for Jira Software. Here, you can take a look at TestFLO for Jira and RTM for Jira, our apps made exactly for managing the testing process. Having everything in one tool is a big plus, as the users stay in the familiar environment instead of learning a new interface. What’s more, the communication between team members, leaders, and project managers gets incomparably easier and changes of statuses are immediately updated for everyone. It’s smart to track test execution in Jira, as it lets us control the whole progress from end to end, providing full traceability of all the relations between the objects, including potential bug tracking. Using a test management plugin for Jira gives you more transparency and is also more efficient. Gathering requirements and test cases as well as setting up a test plan in one test management tool will provide a perfect environment for a continuous, transparent workflow.

Test management is a complex process that aims to establish well-rounded, predictable, and reliable testing. It strongly relies on other processes running in the software development lifecycle, like requirements management and business analysis. For efficient test management, all of them need to be maintained in top shape, as it must be remembered that testing as such isn’t an independent process. We always have to look at the bigger picture, which in this case is your organization’s new software to be released. Jira is a popular project management software, but it lacks the test management functionality out-of-the-box. However, you can find quite a few great apps for test management on the Atlassian Marketplace. Without any doubt, that’s the best way to seamlessly integrate your testing process with Jira. These apps are feature-rich, and their Jira-based interface usually allows you to start testing processes right after the installation, without any additional training for your team. If you’re using Jira at your company and looking for test management software, you might not need to invest in another platform.

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 gaining more knowledge about Jira Software as a test management solution, check out this video tutorial series on our YouTube.