Today, in this article we will discuss different areas or aspects which one needs to consider before choosing a Test management tool for one’s project when so many best test management tools are available in the market. In today’s world, a lot of information is available on the internet about various tools so it makes a bit difficult for the users to understand and identify the right tool according to their requirements and sometimes a user ends up procuring the wrong tool which does not help them increase their productivity but adds further burden on the testing team. So, let’s begin to take a look at few of the parameters which help in taking right decision to choose the test management tool.

Do you know what you need?

Before looking or selecting a test management tool, do you clearly know what is your project requirement? It is very important to know what type of your product is and who are the target users or market of your product.

These factors help to identify a right test tool available in the market. A simple real-life example of this can be; you are planning to buy a simple manual cycle but you end buying an automatic electric cycle which may serve your need but it may completely differ from the specifications you had initially.

How is your Project environment?

If we look at the test tools available in the today’s market then there are tools which are centric to web-based applications, mobile-based application, test scenarios manager for manual testing and automation testing platforms. So, based on your project environment and type of product it can be wise to select the right tool.

For example, if your product is a tool which requires testing from the end users then you won’t need a test management tool which supports automated script running or automating the actions like automating the mouse clicks on a website. Because, in this case you are looking for exploratory testing where there are no predefined test cases and with an predictive output but on the other hand if your product is website then you may need an automation test tool which will help you execute a set of commands whose result is predictive of adding a product to the cart and the cart should have all the products added to it on the checkout page.

How easy is it to adapt or learn the Test Management Tool?

It is required to be considered the expertise of your team before getting a Tool. For example,

If the test tool which you are going to buy has the only support of programming language PHP and your team does not have the expertise of PHP programming language then getting this tool may decrease your productivity.

It is also required to be considered how easy or user-friendly interface of the test tool is, are you or your team able to quickly handle and manage the tool according to your project requirements. One option would be the training options available to get started and the ease of use of the tool. It is also required to be noted that if the test management tool is supporting the third party integrations such as SoapUi, Github, Selenium framework, Mobile framework, Bugzilla, Jira etc.

Test trials

Check if the test management tool has a trial period or an evaluation version available. If it is available then you can try to get an understanding and hands-on this tool before actually end up buying it. This is as similar as you are going to buy a car and you ask for a test drive to check out the features and controls of the car.

Reviews from other users

Before making an actual purchase of the software try to find and read the reviews of the product from the other users on the web. In today’s world of internet, you can easily find other people’s reviews, comments, and suggestions for a specific product. Read what they did not like in any particular product or what they liked about any particular product. Do these likes and dislikes match with any of the requirement you have.

Pricing

• The pricing of the product is also one of the factors which may affect your decision. For example, a test tool management price includes multiple logins and multiple user handling at the same time but your need is of the limited user then you may like to choose another tool.
• It also depends where the data inserted or generated from the tool is stored, is it on the Web or in your local server environment. If it is stored on the web then the tool vendor might have also included the web storage cost in the pricing and if it is storing the data at your local server environment then the price must be different comparatively.
• Sometimes some tool vendors provide their support with some extra price so it is important to check which type of support is included in the final cost of the test tool.

Test report generation

Every test management tool has some sort of reporting module which contains the details of the executed test cases and their result. This can go in a very detailed way like creating pie charts or Gantt charts from the results or simply present the pass/fail result of each test case. So, based on your requirement you can explore a bit more in this area to find out which type of report the tool is exporting out of CSV, PDF, DOC, EXCEL format and in how much detailed way.

Support from Tool provider

It depends on different tools which kind of support they provide and what type of support they provide. For example: does the test management tool includes support methods like Help on each page of the tool, does it have separate documentation about the tool or an online wiki of the tool, how can you contact the tool company to ask your query i.e. Do they have telephone support or text base support,  is there any way to raise a ticket with them if you face any issue while using the tool. So, it depends on your needs with which kind of support mechanism you or your company is compatible with.

Many test management tools also facilitate support through live zoom conference, Skype video calls where you can share your screen with the support person and the support person can share their screen with you. In some cases, desktop sharing software like Teamviewer, VNC are also used to understand and resolve the problem in an efficient way.

One more important parameter is whether the tool is user-friendly or not i.e. Is there a help on every page of the tool or on every screen of the tool.

Versioning

Many of the latest test management tools also provide the integration of versioning through git, perforce, CVS to maintain the different version of manual and automation test cases and also to have their versioning so that users can navigate between different versions as per requirements.

Interoperability

A company or organization have different machines with the different OS like Linux, Mac OS, and Windows so it is to consider that a test management tool is supported for all these platforms or for only one. If it is supported on all platforms then it becomes easier to give access to it to any user with any type of machine.

Conclusion

Picking the wrong test management tool can be a very costly mistake. It is not only the wrong selection but it may mean a significant amount of time waste from the evaluation period till procuring and deploying the tool.

On the other hand, picking the right tool can lead to increase in quality of testing and improvements in the quality release of the products instead of quantitative releases.

The difference between selecting the wrong tool and the right tool comes down to getting the evaluation process right. Follow the above-mentioned aspects to evaluate a test management tools before getting the paid one.