Tools to manage manual testing results - possibly integrated with trac?

Question

At work we currently use Trac to manage our test cases. However, we have quite a few TCs that are listed on test plan wiki pages instead of tickets.

My manager has recently become interested in better documenting the results of manual testing. While this is a noble goal, and several of the people on the QA team are quite gung-ho about the idea, I actually feel that the overhead for such a system may be disastrous if not executed correctly. In fact, the only sane non-Trac integrated solution I can think of is just a simple task manager, where we can store and manage more casual results like, "X ran through Component Y on Env blah at this date and there were these problems". I think that porting over several TC numbers and stuff from the wiki would take ages and some kind of system like "X verified TC 23423432 at time Y and it's passing" is only suitable for automated tests when there's that many test cases (and a small team).

I have seen a few plugins for Trac that allow you to create test plans and the like and report results - but nothing that exciting. Has anyone had experience with these tools? Integration with trac would greatly reduce the overhead, but we still have the issue of not every TC being filed as a ticket, which we'd have to address.

What would you suggest for such a project? Have you been in a similar situation? Your input would be greatly appreciated, as I don't want to be the only nay-sayer on the team and look lazy because of my opinion that over-organizing manual testing with such a small team would be detrimental.

Answer 1

TestLink is a really nice way to manage all your test cases; it has Trac integration and is actively maintained.

Answer 2

Check out AceProject. Though it is a complete project management tool, it can come handy for maintaining manual testing results and test cases too.

Answer 3

Hey.
I work with some heavyweight tool which is HP QualityCenter. It lets to organize tests, search them by any property/text, generate tests statistics, some reports, defects management. It is expensive, so may be to much for you, but you should find something else to do test management.

As for question is it worth... it depends. If it is few months project, maybe it is to much overhead. But regardles of the team size if system is complex and you will be working on it for some time really consider trying some test management system. I work as only tester with 4 developers, so team is relatively small. But what we work on is quite complicated. It is not one single application, but whole system. It is a web app with collection of small tools that are called from master web app. Additionally it is also interaction with MS Project and MS Excel (with collection of our build in tools). There is additional tool for admin tasks. Oracle Hyperion server for reports. Some Citrix virtualization. Bunch of interfaces for interaction with other systems. Just another corporate app. It is 3-4 years old, 0ver 2000 changes/implementations done. Since beginning few people on the team changed, few people form business changed. And there is lots of users.
Without Test Management system we would lose control quickly.

So I would say, you need test management only if you are loosing control over testing activities. Don't try new tool just to have your manager nicer reports. use it if current reports and test management capabilities are not sufficient.

Answer 4

You might want to take a look at our test management tool TestRail. TestRail integrates with any web-based bug tracker by allowing you to link test case results to bug reports and we designed TestRail to have a lightweight/fast UI to make managing test cases and recording results as painless as possible (I know that some of the established tools, well, don't shine in this aspect). We also plan to add support for automated tests later on. Here are more details about the Trac integration:

http://www.gurock.com/testrail/trac-test-management.i.html

Answer 5

Check out FogBugz. It's really really slick. Have used most of the major software for manging testing and it is by far up there in the top 2 or 3.

Answer 6

Hi,

I would like to suggest a tool I have been developing TestLodge - Test Case Management Tool

TestLodge is a relatively new hosted tool that is designed to be a lot simpler than traditional software by only providing the essentials to get the job done well. The system focuses on helping you create your test plans, creating and managing your test suites, requirements and cases along with allowing you to easily perform multiple test runs and generate reports.

This is a commercial product, but it does have a free price plan that may fit your needs.

As always, if you have any suggestions on how we can improve the tool, please get in touch with us.