With a wide variety of choices of web-based test management tools in the market today, picking the best can be quite tricky. Each option will offer different features, testing coverage, ease of access, and many more. How you choose will depend on your software testing material and the extent of testing you need to do. 

Here is a guide on the top five factors that you should consider when choosing your test management tool.

#1 Your test management tool must make you more productive.

Testing teams face lots of challenges every day to meet fast technological changes and the need to test products of various platforms. What’s more, is that manual testing takes a big chunk of the total testing time. Thus, the need for a test management tool comes in. Most of the top test management tools look into the following points to make sure that testing teams become more  productive:

• The Granularity of The Testing Data

The test management tool must generate regular detailed reports on the testing process data. For example, in case of a testing error, a full report will assist testing teams to assess which step along the process failed instead of checking one by one. It should also give notifications to corresponding members on changes and errors that transpired during a particular testing step. Other significant features that you may want to look into that can help your team’s productivity are the creation of defects, test strategy documentation, test execution planning, and linking stories. 

• Tracking Ability

An excellent testing tool should include the ability to have a reliable release management tracking. It must be able to store and organize records of all the software being tested. 

The test management tools must provide the tracking of links with developmental assets and requirements, which gives vital information to company stakeholders. It should also be able to generate single shared storage for the whole testing team to grasp the status of the testing process fully.

• Ease of Reporting

If your testing team is not able to receive regular reports on the status of the testing process, it will take some time before they see errors and concerns, which can lead to delays and even testing failures. A reliable test management tool can help provide reports with information on the test progress, test status on passing or failing, and test case authoring status. It should also show test status per area or department. 

The report should include the full coverage of all activities plus the complete testing lifecycle process. It should consist of the following details:

• A user-friendly dashboard that can provide the testing team a good insight into what tests are running and what is still on pending status
• A graph that highlights the number of test cases that passed failed or still pending

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#2 An excellent test management tool should provide good agile support.

The requirement for agile to support project management teams is increasing each day. Your test management tool must allow for excellent agile support. In a project management testing process, the requirements are variable. Your management tool must be flexible enough to adapt to each change. It should also foster mutual partnership among testers, developers, stakeholders, and the rest of the testing team. Your testing tool should also hold the record for all backlogs and iteration, which testing teams may need in case of fixing errors.

#3 A useful test management tool can support external integrations.

Web-based testing lowers the burden of testing teams. Picking a test management tool that can integrate well with various automation tools makes it a lot easier. When selecting your testing tool, check if it can handle test scripts, scheduling, and system launching. Moreover, assess its capability to keep the automation test results to support the continuous integration of external links.

For the QA department, it will be a big help if the test management tool can integrate with software that has bug tracking tools, such as Jira. A support desk system integration is also beneficial to the testing team as it can create tickets for any concern, which the corresponding department may solve and answer. This way, the error solution is more efficient. 

#4 An exceptional test management tool provides top-notch team support.

The test management tool vendor or company must be able to provide a top-notch support team to its customers. While the focus of the testing tool must be on its features, it should also be able to have 24/7 desk support for software troubleshooting or feature tutorial. It can be through a phone call, live chat, email, desk ticketing, FAQs, user guides, and detailed product information.

Most top market management tool contenders provide its customers with live video tutorials and video conferences. If the live meeting is not possible, a recorded demo must be readily available on their website. The availability of tutorials, FAQs, and user guides in different languages is a big plus.

#5 A reliable test management tool has enterprise-level security capabilities.

Your test case management tool must be able to keep your data safe and secure against any unauthorized access. It must have enterprise-level security to safeguard your assets, critical data, and even test results. SSL-driven security should be able to help you place data on the testing tool without the risk of hacking or data misuse. Remember not to take this factor for granted as your testing process directs the success or failure of your project. 

Conclusion

Choosing the best test management tool will require your time and effort. But, having the testing tool that perfectly fits your needs will go a long way for you and the whole testing team. Remember that your choice must encourage team productivity and support agile testing, permit external integration for full automation, and continuous integration. It should have enterprise-level security capability to keep your data safe and secure. And last but not least, a useful test management tool must have full technical support that can help the testing team if there is an error on the software itself.