1. The testing automation tool must be able to provide up to date quality information on product releases.

2. The testing tool must provide real time testing metrics data for senior management and SQA teams.

3. The testing tool must provide a comprehensive view across all projects and releases.

4. The testing tool must be able to manage globally distributed testing teams.

5. The testing tool must provide visibility into distributed testing team activities.

6. The testing tool must be able to offer significant cost and time savings.

7. The testing tool must provide a single platform to manage every activity of testing lifecycle.

Software testing lifecycle is one of the vital parts of the centralized software quality assurance (SQA) process. SQA is actually the process where quality assurance teams take a broader view on software, its development and testing activities. They constantly monitor the development and testing process so that organizations greatly reduce the amount of errors/defects that get delivered along with the final version of the software.

To cut down the defect rates and improve the overall quality of the software product, testing tools need to be implemented. The usage of a centralized test automation tool can aid SQA teams to understand the testing process better and suggest process improvements.

Test metrics are difficult to generate when an organization does not use a common tool for test cases and defects. To maximize throughput and derive common test metrics across existing tools, a reliable and centralized test management tool needs to be used by the test teams.

The main advantage of using test tools is to enhance release-to-release productivity metrics. These tools can be integrated with existing setup so that all projects are accounted for under a centralized area. Doing so, organizations are able to derive exact metrics on defects, quality and test cases on an overall basis. In fact, one other important reason why they should be implemented is because these tools can provide risk analysis for test management services.

Usually the V model is chosen over other QA methodologies because it’s the most logical way to carry out development and testing of a project. In this model the testing team acts parallel to the development team, i.e., the output of the testing team goes as input to the next development activity. Every completed module sent to the testing teams.

Once all modules are found to work in unison the onsite team can test run the software on user systems. Other compatibility issues are checked at this point. The testing process requires a robust testing tool to track overall metrics pertaining to defects and quality. Choosing a best test automation tool can definitely aid in speedy development of software products.

Test case management is vital to any testing group. By managing test cases with a robust tool, the team can ensure that all test requirements are tested and certified before the module advances to the next phase. Testing tools must possess excellent test case repository management capabilities that will ensure the test cases are organized and accessible at all times.

By using good test management tools, test leads can now build test case repository tree to incorporate the various kinds of tests that will be run. Such a repository can be built from scratch, or inherited from previous releases or imported or a combination thereof. Also, every test case ever authored now stays in one organized place, which makes it easy for testing teams to allocate tasks amongst themselves.

Testing automation tools are main pillars of strength for any test team. The following are the ideal characteristics of a reliable and robust test tool.

1. Significantly improves productivity.


2. Controls overall testing related costs.

3. Brings management to the testing chaos.

4. Integrates with existing automation testing tools and defect tracking tools.

5. Speeds up product time-to-market.

6. Provides real time visibility into quality and throughput.

Software testing teams require robust systems that can manage the test documentation and test metrics processes. Since both the processes are vital to track any test information relating to the testing process and the testing team, they need to be managed by reliable test automation tools. Only when these two factors are well taken care, testing teams can proceed with their regular activities.

In general, a testing dashboard can generate the required test metrics and aid in process analysis. It is important to check whether test automation tools can cater to different QA methodologies, compare test metrics from different outputs, and then provide comprehensive metrics for the senior management. Using a SaaS testing platform will be highly beneficial to software concerns in terms of cost and efficiency of operations.

Going by the large turnout of software organizations who are in active expansion of their market bases, testing services have become imperative to the growth of any organization. Robust testing services (that provide test dashboard features) that can handle testing of remotely located projects are widely used by many organizations. Since they offer excellent cost control benefits, testing services are now in great demand.

Another reason for their popularity is that software companies do not run all projects under one location and these projects do not follow the same development cycle. So, when different QA methodologies are used in the same organization they need testing tools that can handle such scenarios. Since the testing market is abounding with large number of test automation tools, choosing one that will address all organizational issues can improve operational efficiency.

A detailed test management process usually sticks to the v-model or waterfall methodology regime, which offers the best and logical sequence to perform testing. Using test management tool at this juncture will prove to be highly beneficial for test groups because of the many automated features offered by the test tool.

A reliable testing tool eliminates the hassle of initial setup and configuration, accelerates the adoption of a test management solution, reaps benefits of a structured test process faster and eventually, helps to achieve productivity and efficiency gains right away. It also saves on time and money for the enterprise by providing a test dashboard which displays all the QA metrics for centralized monitoring of test activities.

Test management services are widely available for software organizations that require robust automated systems to manage large testing teams. There are service providers who are able to deploy test management software in a minimum of two days and also ensure that the system is running full-fledged supporting all other existing systems.

Since testing platforms are now available as a SaaS service, the service providers offer to deploy systems in both SaaS and on-premise version. The installation process involves setting up of users, projects, releases, test repositories, schedules for executions; and also, integration with defect tracking systems (to generate test metrics), document management, collaboration and testing dashboard provisions.