Jira as a Tool for Test Management

Editor's Notes

1. JIRA is one of the tools developed by Atlassian company (http://www.atlassian.com/). There are more than 18’000 companies world wide using Atlassian tools.And these tools are also quite familiar in Latvian IT community.There are several tools provided by Atlassian. The most popular are:JIRA – tool for project and issue trackingPluginsGreenhopper – tool for agile project managementBonfire – tool for Exploratory testingConfluence – a wiki tool for collaboration and content sharingSeveral code quality tools – Bamboo, Clover, Crucible, FishEyeBonfire is dedicated plugin for JIRA to be able to manage testing.Unfortunately this is commercial plugin and will require additional costs.What can we do about test management in JIRA and not willing to invest money in other tools?
2. Let’s start with introduction to some basic concepts in JIRA.Each document or issue in JIRA has an issue type.Most popular are the ones related to application maintenance – incidents, problems, service requests, change requestsThere can be unlimited types of issues defined in JIRA: - Change Request - Incident - Problem - Service Request - User Stories - ...
3. Another important concept in JIRA is workflow.There can be unlimited number of workflows defined.For each issue type in JIRA project there can be a particular workflow associated.New workflows can be easily defined. For each transition between statuses there can be 1) screens containing particular fields configured which can be filled in when transition is executed2) a performer set - user role provided which can perform a transition3) post fuctions defined which will be executed – for example – update value of the particul field, perform additional actionsWhen issue has been created, it has a status – in a sample case – Open.On the final status it is possible to set resolution for the issue, so that it disappears from the operational views in JIRA.
4. There are two types of relationships available in JIRA by defaultWhen new issue is created it is a Main issueFor Main issue there could be sub-tasks created - if there are several activities to be performed to solve the issueJIRA default configuration allows only 2 levels in issue hierarchy. Sometimes it seems to be a kind of limitation, however it is possible to adjust mindset to the limitation and find a solution to be enough with two levels issue hierarchy. Data fields can be used to categorize issues and group relevant ones together.Links – any two issues can be linked to show relationship between them
5. Last key concept in JIRA is Versions. Putting issue to the version, JIRA allows to monitor readiness or maturity of the version, called “Road Map”There can be different use of versions – in Maintenence projects these could be releases which are defined as versions – e.g - R12.2 - R12.3However, these could be also Project phases which are defined as versions – e.g. - System Test - User Acceptance TestThere could be also additional version created for Administrative tasks in the project.--------------------------------------Now you have beed introduced to basic concepts in JIRA – issue types - workflows - relationships between issues - versionsNow I’m going to discuss how the same concepts can be used also for testing management not only issue and project tracking.
6. As the first step to configure JIRA to support Test management is to define new issue types.On the main level we defined one issue type – TestOn Sub-task level we defined Test* and Acceptance Test*We put * at the end of issue type because issue type name should be unique in JIRA. But still we wanted to have issue type names similar to be easier used in searches afterwards.
7. To maintain Testing Phases we used two approaches:Define Versions to correspond to Testing Phases:System TestUser Acceptance TestORUse different issue types for Tests performed by Supplier team (Test*)Customer team (Acceptance Test*)
8. Let’s check key elements on JIRA issue:Issue Type – TestFix VersionsLinked issuesSub-tasks
9. To supporttest management we have defined a new workflow. We used the same workflow for all issue types related to testing.To define Issue statuses for test management we prefixed all test related statuses with ���Test:”This helped to sort test related statuses together in JIRA reports and views.The first 2 statuses can be used while in Test planning phase – to start to create tests and sub tasks as early as possible in the project, which will be part of test plan – to document all tests which will need to be executed.At planning phase all issues can be assigned to test manager, and then, when decided who will test what – tests can be re-assigned to the actual tester and issue can be moved in wirkflow to the step “Test: Ready to Run”Or test can be assigned to dedicated tester if there will be needed to provide detailed information about what test activities will be performed.The following statuses are related to Test Execution: - In Progress, ....There are 2 final statuses in Test workflow where resolution will be set: - Test: Passed – Resolution = ‘Fixed’ - Test: Obsolete – Resolution = ‘Won’t fix’
10. This is how test related statuses look like on JIRA online reporting gadgets.
11. Let’s check key elements on JIRA issue:Issue Type – TestMaster issue number / sub-task issue number Issue Status / Resolution / Fixed versionsWorkflow actionsDescription == test steps, test procedure – free formattingTest results as screenshots
12. Attached screenshots can be easily reviewed.
13. Let’s check key elements on JIRA issue:Issue statusWorkflow actionsLinks to related issues
14. Let’s check key elements on JIRA issue – discovered failure during test execution:Links to related issues
15. There is Clone and Move functionality in JIRA which allows to create copy from System Test to Acceptance test
16. Sample online reports available in JIRA – pie charts
17. Sample online reports available in JIRA – two dimensional filter statistics - Issue statistics
18. Samples demonstrated so far were suitable for development or implementation projects where testing is a separate project phase and testing tasks are planned independently from reported issues.In application maintenance projects testing is closely related to reported issues.In such cases testing activities can be created as sub tasks to the reported incident or problem, or link between problem and test can be created: Problem .. is tested by   Test .. is testing
19. JIRA allows to monitor maturity of the version – Road mapIt shows number of Fixed issues linked to the version and issues still in progress
20. !!!!DEMO!!!!https://jira.ebit.lv/secure/Dashboard.jspazane.odzina@ebit - Dashboards -- Test -- All - Project roadmap - Project summary