Jira is a collaboration tool that’s highly popular with development teams working with Agile methodology. Jira is ideal for monitoring progress on projects and tracking discovery and resolution of software issues – critical capabilities in the fast-paced environment of Agile development. Jira can comfortably be used by developers and testers as well as business analysts, managers, and other non-technical personnel.
Because Jira fits the Agile workflow so perfectly, many teams are tempted to use Jira for managing software testing as well. But Jira test management capabilities are limited — the platform simply isn’t built to streamline software testing workflows. For teams that want an alternative to Jira test management, there are options for add-ons and for dedicated test management tools that can be integrated with the Jira platform.
Test management tools have very specific functions that help accelerate the pace of, and improve the accuracy of, testing. These testing tools must be able to:
For all its features and benefits, Jira presents some significant obstacles for development teams seeking a test management solution.
Jira offers access to a variety of add-ons that help to extend the functionality of the platform, and some add-ons can improve Jira test management capabilities. Add-ons aggregate groups of testing in Jira to enable testers to pull all test cases into cycles or suites. Add-ons also provide visibility into execution results of test cases for each group. Perhaps the biggest advantage of add-ons is that they enable developers and testers to work with familiar tools and dashboards when managing testing.
However, Jira test management add-ons have certain limitations as well.
A second alternative to Jira test management is to integrate a dedicated test case management tool with the Jira platform. This approach provides access to enterprise test features and the ability to use test case repositories based on templates. With certain tools, testers can also reuse test cases and share objects across different projects while enjoying support for multiple testing strategies.
The disadvantages of this approach include:
Tricentis qTest Manager provides the benefits of an enterprise test case management tool using Jira test management. As an end-to-end Continuous Testing platform, Tricentis offers a suite of solutions that provide automated Agile and DevOps testing along with real-time business risk insight across the entire DevOps pipeline.
Tricentis qTest Manager provides real-time integration with Jira releases, issues, and defects. With Tricentis, you can plan, track, and test smarter and faster than ever before with a Jira testing tool built for Agile testing.
Tricentis qTest Manager provides:
Jira is a project management tool that is widely used by Agile software development teams for issue and project tracking. Jira is designed for both technical and non-technical users, enabling everyone on a development team to more easily plan, track, release, and report on software.
Many development organizations have sought to use Jira as a test management tool. While the software was not designed for this purpose, development teams are often attracted by the prospect of consolidating issue tracking and testing tools on the same platform.
As a test management tool, Jira has many limitations. The software lacks native test management functionality which leads to more inefficient workflows. Jira experiences significant performance issues when the number of test cases scales to tens or hundreds of thousands. Testers cannot automate execution of tests from within the platform. And Jira makes it exceptionally difficult to reuse tests, adding a significant amount of duplication as testers are forced to recreate tests over and over.