Test Management Tools

What are Test Management Tools?

A test management tool is a software application designed to help teams manage their software testing processes effectively. It provides a centralized location for storing and managing test cases, test scenarios, requirements, and defects.

Test management tools enable teams to:

• Create a Test Plan, design, execute, and track tests to efficiently manage the testing process.
• Track testing progress and identify issues quickly.
• Collaborate with other team members and share information effectively.
• Prioritize testing efforts and optimize time for a faster release.
• View insights to understand the implementation level of the test plan and coverage of the business requirements.

Why are Test Management Tools important? 

A software project can fail due to poor documentation, insufficient time for testing, premature release, and under-resourcing as some of the core reasons

Choosing the right Test management tool is crucial for software development from an ROI perspective. It helps with:

• Faster release
• Improving User Churn Rate
• Efficient Resource Utilization
• Better Visibility and Control
• Cost-effectiveness

Faster release

Over 20% of developers cite time-related factors as common causes of software project failure. These include issues such as:

• Missed Delivery Timeline, 
• Pre-Mature Release, and 
• Insufficient Time allocated to testing 

Test management tool speeds up the testing process, making it much more efficient. It helps deliver a faster release of the software. You can perform: 

• Test planning, 
• Test Execution, and
• Set Test Case Priority, to make test execution faster.

Improving User Churn Rate

Software industry is highly competitive, where users expect a seamless bug-free user experience to continue using an application. Out of every 2 apps installed, 1 is uninstalled within the first 30 days due to lack of user experience.

Test management tool scrutinizes each process of testing in detail. It helps track and align the testing process with business requirements. A sophisticated test management tool can help deliver a bug-free experience to the users. Thus, improving churn rate by providing better user experience.

Efficient Resource Utilization

A good Test management tool helps plan and allocate resources effectively, including human resources, testing tools, and testing environments. This ensures that the testing process is conducted efficiently with the resources being used optimally. Thus, preventing wastage or under-resourcing from causing software project failure.

Better Visibility and Control

Test Management tool allows project stakeholders to track progress, identify bottlenecks, and make informed decisions, especially for larger projects. It enables project managers to have better control over the testing activities.

Since QA is allocated almost over 50% of the total software development budget, having control over the process is crucial. Test Management tool gives you a central dashboard with all the historic data with different metrics in a single dashboard for better visibility into the insights.

Cost-effectiveness

Did you know software bugs cause economic damage of $316 billion per year globally?

A good test management tool provides access to detailed insights with a sophisticated Test Execution Reporting Dashboard, which increases the chances of finding and fixing bugs in the testing stage. 

Having detailed insights on different metrics helps save costs related to fixing defects by up to 85%. The faster the defect is caught, the lesser cost is incurred in fixing the defect. 

Who needs Test Management Tools?

Test Management is used for delivering high-quality software applications by:

• Developers, who perform unit testing and debug code based on test results, to deliver error-free code. 
• QAs, who test the application using different testing techniques like functional, regression, usability, and cross-browser testing to find bugs and document them in detailed Test Execution Reports.
• Product Managers, who foresee the entire software development lifecycle of the product and ensure optimum performance with faster delivery and high quality.
• Business Analysts, who ensure all the test cases are well aligned with the business requirements specs at every stage, keeping users’ interests in mind.

How to find the right Test Management Tool?

When choosing a test management tool, it’s important to consider several factors to ensure you choose the right one for your business requirements.

• Functionality and Features: Ensure your tool has the key features and functionality your team needs to manage your testing process.
• Migration: Consider if you can easily migrate your existing test suite. BrowserStack Test Management offers you Quick Import of Test Cases from TestRail, Zephyr Scale, and CSV files
• Pricing and Licensing: Consider the tool’s pricing structure and licensing options, including whether it offers a free trial or demo.
• UI and Ease of Use: Check the tool’s user interface to ensure that it’s user-friendly and easy to use, which can help your team quickly adopt and use the tool.
• Integration: Ensure the tool integrates seamlessly with other tools and platforms your team already uses, such as CI/CD pipelines, test automation frameworks, and test management systems. Check out Test Management Integrations
• Scalability and Performance: Assess whether the tool can handle your project’s growth and increasing complexity without compromising performance or speed.
• Detailed Analytics and Data Visualization: Choose a test management tool that offers a 360-degrees view into the test management process with comprehensive report and analytics. It should provide data visualization and deep insights for better decision making.
• Supports Collaboration: Ensure your tool allows better collaboration of team with user-based access roles for seamless collaboration of different stakeholders across teams.
• Support and Training: Look for a tool with strong support options, including documentation, tutorials, and responsive customer support to help your team maximize its effectiveness.

Top Test Management Tools for Different Phases of Test Management

Test Management Tools are pivotal at every stage of the Test Management process. 

Test Case Management

BrowserStack Test Management tool is a great tool for Test Case Management. It is unified platform where you can create, manage, and run test cases seamlessly. It is flexible and allows you to effectively perform test case management from scratch or import test cases.

• Create/Import Test Cases: It allows you to migrate your existing project data from TestRail or Zephyr Scale by selecting “Quick Import”. Also, you can import data from CSV by selecting “Start from Scratch” or write test cases from scratch within the BrowserStack Test Management Tool.
• Manage Test Cases: You can manage your existing test suite or create a new one from scratch using BrowserStack Test Management. You can copy or move, edit or delete test cases to manage them better. Also, BrowserStack Test Management allows you to apply filters to test cases for efficient test case management.
• Run Test Cases: It enables you to run manual and automated test cases. You can integrate test case ID tagging with test suites for better visibility and tracking of individual test cases. You can also run critical test cases by assigning Priority of Test Cases using Custom Configurations in Test Run.

Try BrowserStack Test Management

Test Planning

BrowserStack Test Management tool gives you an organized view of your test cases and clarity of steps for execution. You get an added advantage of not just defining your test cases, but also directly monitoring and running your tests using the configurations of devices and operating systems.

BrowserStack Test Management tool allows you to create test plan and track them efficiently by syncing it with your JIRA Test Management suite using seamless integration.

Test Case Prioritization

BrowserStack Test Management tool helps mark test cases is by using the Priority and Tags field. You can later filter your test cases on these criteria and add these to your test plan faster. You can set values in Priority for running tests in order of criticality.

You can save your time and resources by prioritizing test cases effectively using BrowserStack Test Management. You can also filter test cases using BrowserStack Test Management tool for easier and effective debugging.

Test Execution

BrowserStack Test Management tool enables you to run manual and automated test cases. You can integrate test case ID tagging with test suites for better visibility and tracking of individual test cases.

It integrates well with popular automated test frameworks, where you can fetch test run results to consolidate and analyze in a centralized dashboard. It supports multiple frameworks, such as:

• TestNG
• WebdriverIO
• NightwatchJS
• Appium
• Cypress
• Mocha
• PyTest 
• Playwright
• Espresso
• XCUITest
• Cucumber

Try BrowserStack Test Management

You can also run critical test cases by assigning Priority of Test Cases using Custom Configurations in Test Run.

Test Execution Reporting and Analytics

Reporting and analytics are crucial to keep a check on the testing process, identify, and debug any issues. Using BrowserStack Test Management tool you can Upload and Analyze Test Results from different frameworks and create a consolidated Test Execution Report for your test suite.

BrowserStack Test Management Tool allows you to track the active or closed test runs and analyze the run results. It offers you a detailed breakdown of the test run status for Active Test Runs and Closed Test Runs.

You get data visualization of different in a central customized dashboard for easy tracking and deeper analysis.

Why is BrowserStack the best Test Management Tool?

Here’s why BrowserStack is the best Test Management Tool to manage your testing process efficiently:

• It allows you to write test cases from scratch or import your existing test suite from TestRail, Zephyr Scale or CSV files in a single click.
• It supports different test automation frameworks and allows you to fetch test execution report from different frameworks.
• It offers a detailed test reporting dashboard with rich artifacts and data visualization for a better analytics with it AI-driven RCA.
• It is an all-in-one, unified platform where you can write test cases, create test plan, prioritize test cases, execute them and get detailed test execution report. 

Conclusion

Test Management is fundamental to make software development process efficient. Test Management Tool ensures faster release, better quality, efficient utilization of resources and enhanced cost-effectiveness. 

Using Test Management tools like Browserstack Test Management you can create, manage and track manual and automated test cases with its integrated end-to-end workflows and dashboards. You can maintain a centralized repository for all your manual and automated test cases for better visibility and control over the testing process. 

By choosing a good test management tool you can enhance the software delivery process at multiple levels.