Move over Zephyr, XRAY, TestRail... How to use JIRA itself as a test management tool

#testing #testplan #jira #productivity

Remember the days when ~~HP Quality Centre~~ ALM used to be the gold standard of test management... well, look at how the tides have changed. Reminds me of how Blockbuster 🎟️ was too late to compete with Netflix and now, they've gone bust. Makes you wonder why Microfocus bought the tool just a couple of years back when everyone is already moving into a more agile, less admin-like (robotic) logging of test cases. It doesn't help that its slow-performing and costs a leg and arm to license it every year 🤯.
In any case, that's not the point of this article (I know, I always gets side-tracked 🤦‍♂️).
My point is that no one needs test management anymore (sheepishly looking at my non-existent sponsors 🤪)! The tendency is teams treat the quantity of test cases as the success metrics for quality, which I beg to disagree! The number of test cases you have does not mean you will deliver a quality product. Imagine, having a single test case for login then another for making a payment - understandably, they don't have the same amount of weight. As the saying goes, the devil is in the detail. Sad truth is having a thousand of tests in a fancy test report always sell 😔!
While there is movement moving towards testing embedded as part of development process and reporting is done on the CI / automation stage, unfortunately, not all companies are there yet. Hence, some might still need to have a test management tool. However, instead of paying for a JIRA plug-in like Zephyr or XRAY, or an integration like qTest or TestRail, you can use JIRA itself. Less context-switching, less steps 🥂!
Spoiler alert: You need to have JIRA admin rights to make this happen.
Here's how with my "Marie Kondo"-inspired workflow:

Go to Project settings > Issue types then create an issue type called Test (and/or sub-task called Sub-test if you would like it visible under the User Story)
Go to Project settings > Fields > Custom fields then create a new custom field with field type Text Field (multi-line)called Test Scenarios
Go to Project settings > Field configurations then find the newly-created custom field. Click Renderers hyperlink then select Wiki Style Renderer to update
Click the horizontal ellipsis then select Contexts and default value
Under the Default Value section, click the Edit Default Value hyperlink
Enter the sample table below then hit Set Default to save

||Test scenario||Test data||Screenshot||Status||
|Scenario 1|Test data 1|<upload here>|Pass / Fail|

Go to Project settings > Workflows then create a workflow called Test Workflow and create a flow like below:
Link the workflow, issue type, and custom field together by googling how to do this (sorry, this part is something that would prolong my article unnecessarily so I'll leave it up to you to sort it out 🤪)

You would have something like this where the tests are visible (and no multiple layers / steps needed outside the user story to see the statuses of your test scripts / cases)

Note: You can do this (if you're still transitioning from waterfall to agile) or if you want to do hardcore "Agile" then just include them inside the User story's "Acceptance criteria" 😁