Software Test Management Tool for the QA Team

QA test management team has a strong role to play in ensuring the quality of products or services provided. Quality Assurance (QA) has been an issue of great concern for the past decade. If for instance, the aim of the project is to deliver a complex end-product, the quality aspects of that end-product will need to be planned, designed and worked for.

With the advanced software test management tools, QA teams can achieve increased productivity and efficiency, and improved quality of testing. It offers manageability for managers and leads, productivity & efficiency for testers, instant collaboration for the QA team and real time reporting for the department or company. The result is instant collaboration, improved productivity and higher quality products.

Role of Test Management System in Saving Time

Test management system is nothing but a back to back procedure for assessing the software’s functionality as per the defined requirements. Quality Assurance teams have been using age-old document based methods and outdated applications to assess the quality of the software.

QA teams can ensure better quality of the software products by using advanced tools, which will make the work easier for them. Advanced test management systems share the responsibilities of the testers, and thus save time. The most important task is tracking metrics as metrics help to define, measure, and track quality goals for the project. Tracking defects is an important source of quality metrics and doing it effectively is essential for both the testing and the developing team. The new software test management tool available not only tracks metrics but also updates instantaneously, thus saving considerable amount of time for the testers.

New test management systems keep the whole company updated on every aspect of testing and product quality. It also saves the trouble of sending status reports, as all data is shared from a centralized repository.

Test Management Tools

Test management tools help the Quality Assurance team in test planning, test case creation, execution to all aspects of resource, project management; and even bug tracking and report generation. But they could work effectively and in lesser time if they have advanced test management tools to back them. These would help the test teams to achieve enhanced levels of productivity in order to ship high quality software on-time.

Advanced software test management tool is based around the concept of Desktops and Dashboards. The customized desktop with relevant applications allows the QA team to do their jobs faster and better. On the other hand, the automated and live dashboards keep the whole company updated on every aspect of testing and product quality. It helps them to manage every aspect of testing engagements, global communication and collaboration issues, and also meets the need for continuous tracking and reporting, and affordability.

Advanced test management tools help the testers as well as the testing vendors and play a dominant role in improving communication, reporting, and productivity.

Software Test Management Makes Job Easier

Software test management is nothing but organization of test cases and implementation of its results. But it is not that simple as it sounds. It involves organization, planning, authoring, execution, and reporting. And all these should be done meticulously and with great care. Otherwise the quality of the software under development will be in jeopardy. So in order to do tasks diligently, testers require the help of advanced software test management systems.

These QA test management systems help to make the job easier for the testers by sharing most of their work. These systems work in sync with the testers so that quality products are developed. The challenges faced by the QA team such as lack of time and resources, testing team working in different geographic locations, problems in linking testing with requirements and development, and finally reporting the right information are all taken care of by these systems.

So these advanced systems help the testers to channelize their time and resources to more productive tasks.

QA Test Management

Quality plays a dominant role in the grading of software products. So the testing process should be carried out with great precision to make sure that the product conforms to the requirements of quality. This is possible if there is competent QA test management team to carry out the testing process. Any qualified tester can work productively if he has the backing of advanced test management systems as it can mitigate, to a great extent, the problems faced by the testers during the testing process. Thus it will not only ease the pressure off from the testers but also save a lot of precious time.

Now the advanced test management system available makes the process of software development all the more easy. It is feature-rich and is user friendly. It is role based in the sense that it displays different applications for different roles. What is displayed for managers is completely different from what is displayed for the test leads. It allows the testers to navigate easily between various projects and releases.

Since all the info comes from centralized data repositories only minimum updating is required on the part of the testers. An important feature of these systems is that it facilitates instant collaboration in real time. Thus these test management systems make the life of testers less chaotic.

Improved Software Test Management Tool

Test management system is a back to back procedure for assessing the software’s functionality as per the defined requirements. For the process of QA testing to work effectively, software test management tool is a great help. Quality Assurance teams can do their work more efficiently and in lesser time with these tools, as it helps them right from test planning, test case creation, execution to all aspects of resource, project management; and even bug tracking and report generation.

Test management tools simplify work as they manage the entire testing process using a customized desktop that allow testers to open multiple applications and also provide instant global communication capabilities. Juggling between various projects and releases is a part of the tester’s job and these tools make navigation easier. Everything that any QA team member needs is available in one place – the centralized repository.

Another specialty is that test tools easily fit and improve any test methodology that has been used as part of the software development cycle; be it waterfall, V-Model, Agile or Hybrid. So, testing tools are a real asset for testers.

V Model

The kind of software methodology used in the development of software determines the quality of the software product. There are several QA methodologies, each having their own merits as well as demerits. The most common methodologies used in software development are Hybrid, Waterfall, Agile model, V Model and so on. Of the different models let’s look at V Model in particular. In V Model the most important aspects are verification and validation and hence the name ‘V’.

V Model is suitable for projects which are complex. Its most important aspects are that it is a structured, well documented and disciplined process. Not only that, it is also a rigorous, measurable and predictive process.  In order to make sure that the developed software conforms to the defined requirements, the test tools used should be equally good. It should perfectly fit with the software methodology selected. Let’s see how the test development tools perform if the methodology selected is V Model.

Feature-rich advanced test development tools like Zephyr produce live metrics on all key stages of the V Model testing cycle. It constantly measures the productivity, efficiency and quality of the software by reporting on test case creation, coverage, test execution progress and defects. It helps to maintain rigor in the testing process and handles multiple testing cycles for System, Integration, and final Acceptance.

Defect Tracking Management to Ensure Quality

The main purpose of software testing is not only to make sure that it conforms to the user requirements but also to the quality requirements. On doing so several defects are exposed, which have to be fixed in order to ensure quality. But this takes a lot of time as the defects filed by the testers need to be quickly fixed by the developers, so that the testers can verify it and close it out.

This tedious task can be made easy if a good defect tracking management is in place. Now there are several advanced test management systems available with built in defect tracking systems. These systems simplify the process of filing defects as it allows live-tracking. No need to update the defect charts as it will get automatically updated. As a result, all the info about defects such as the location of the bugs, the backlogs, and their priorities can be got fast and within no time. It also allows the testers to search and browse the defects filed in a number of ways.

So these advanced test management systems make filing, fixing and closing of the bugs an effortless task thereby easing the pressure off from the testers.

Software Test Management Gets Easier

Software test management involves organization, planning, authoring, execution, and reporting of software testing process. This should be done with a lot of precision and accuracy, since the quality of the software product under testing is at stake. The testers can do their job effectively and productively, if they can concentrate more on their task and less on issues like tracking metrics, generating reports, filing defects etc.

Now there are software test management systems with advanced features like live tracking, live charts that update instantly the details about the creation or execution of any test case, addition or removal of any resource, any defect filed or changed, which helps the testers not only in solving these issues but also in ensuring the quality of the software, thereby delivering the software to the market in time.

Defect Tracking Now Made Easy

The test management systems that are now available are much more developed and advanced than the testing tools used by the testers till recently. These systems are feature–rich and therefore a very good investment. Most of the test management systems come with an in built defect tracking management system thereby making the job of the testers less cumbersome.

These multipurpose test management systems are so useful that the testers won’t find anything to complain for. It’s an answer to most of the problems that the testers have been facing for so long. There is no doubt about the fact their trouble starts with the filing of defects. Because a lot many testers would be working on different aspects of a software product under testing and therefore, a lot of time would be needed to track the defects filed.

Normally these defects are stored in a database which makes it all the more difficult for the developers in retrieving info about the defects filed in order to fix it and for the testers as well in verifying the fixed bugs for closing it out. But the advanced test management systems solve this issue by facilitating live tracking. Hence no more wasting time in collecting details about the defects filed as all will be updated and displayed instantly on the dashboards. The latest defect tracking management systems are beneficial enough to spend on.