Friday, August 29, 2008

Test management and bug tracking tools

As part of my responsibilities as SQA Engineer to upgrade our QA overall processes, I have to evaluate free tools for handling Test Management and Bug tracking. Currently, my company has been using Eventum for handling support issues as well as Project Releases for many years.
We found that Eventum have limited features and capabilities which affects our efficiency and effectiveness in handling issues arise from Code Review and Software Testing. Furthermore, I can't find any free tools that can easily integrate with Eventum for Test Project Managements. This lead us to source for new free tools that cater for both Test Project and Bug Tracking Managements.
My new team member has suggested Mantis as he did used Mantis as the Bug Tracking tool in his previous company. My Manager also did used Mantis in her previous company. We evaluate Mantis as well as BugNet and few more bug tracking tools. Finally, we have decided to use Mantis as it is quite similar with Eventum but with additional features, capabilities and catered for multi-level projects. At the same time, we also look for Test Project Management tool that can easily be integrated with Mantis. TestLink is the best choice so far.
With TestLink, we can create the Test Cases for the Test Project dynamically and collectively. The testing is only be executed after created a Test Plan for the Test Project. Meaning that, each Test Project can have many Test Plan, which we previously called it as Releases in the Eventum. Once the Test Plan is created, the Test Cases is pooled from the Test Specification and assigned to the Tester. The assigned Tester will execute the Test Cases and manually select the option for the test outcome, which is either Failed, Blocked or Passed. For Failed or Blocked outcomes, we need to click on the bug's icon to enter the Mantis's Issue ID. We have customized this part where when the Tester click on the icon, they will automatically pointed to Mantis and able to report the issue, without need to login at different page. The same goes to Mantis where we have added link at each issue for the specific Test Case. Meaning that the QA/Tester focal point is the TestLink, while the Developer is Mantis.
As I've use both TestLink and Mantis now for few projects, I am very happy to say that both tools has complemented each other very well and most importantly has improve our efficiency and effectiveness tremendously.

No comments: