Jira for Testing: How to Optimize Jira for QA Needs

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Jira is widely recognized as an agile project management platform, not a test management tool - and that’s a valid observation. Out of the box, it lacks many features that QAs rely on. But here’s the reality: if your team already uses Jira for development, QA will likely end up there as well. 

And while Jira may initially seem unsuited for the testing process, with the right optimization steps and a few key add-ons, it can become a reliable space for managing testing activities.

In this article, we’ll demonstrate how to adapt Jira for testing. You’ll learn how to write and organize test cases in Jira, track testing progress, and connect QA work to product requirements - all within Jira. 

We’ll also highlight tools that can streamline the process, including reusable templates, checklists, and various plugins. 

Why should you use Jira for testing?

The short answer is that Jira remains the single source of truth for most product teams. Managing various processes with it allows teams to align workflows across different roles and keep everyone on the same page. 

Here are some key benefits of using Jira for testers in a QA workflow:

• Collaboration with developers
  
  Testing is managed in the same tool as development, making it easier to report issues, streamline issue tracking, tag devs, and follow the resolution cycle.

• Centralized test visibility
  
  QAs can track test coverage across features and link test cases directly to user stories, bugs, and requirements.
  
  
• Bug reporting and triage
  
  Easy to create, categorize, and prioritize bugs - complete with attachments, repro steps, and links to related tickets.
  
  
• Custom fields and statuses
  
  QA teams can add useful fields, such as environment, test status, or severity, and create workflows tailored to different testing stages.
  
  
• Integration with test management add-ons
  
  Jira’s native functionality can be enhanced with tools such as Xray, Zephyr, and QMetry. These Jira integrations allow you to add structured test planning and execution, as well as streamline reporting inside Jira.
  
  
• Automation and test tracking
  
  QAs can use automation rules to assign tickets, trigger notifications, or create recurring test tasks.
  
  
• Dashboards for reporting
  
  Jira dashboards give QA leads a high-level view of testing progress, open defects, and release readiness.

Now, let’s explore what can be done to make Jira more QA-friendly.

11 steps to optimize Jira for testing and make your work easier

Here are practical tips and process tweaks that can make life easier for QA engineers, while also enhancing collaboration across the entire development team.

1. Configure your Jira board to reflect the QA steps

Jira boards are often set up with a basic flow: To Do, In Progress, Done. However, this default setup doesn’t fully capture the reality of the development process, particularly QA work. Most testing processes include multiple checkpoints, such as Ready for Testing, In Testing, QA Passed, and QA Failed. Without these stages being clearly visible, it becomes harder to track testing progress or identify where issues get stuck.

To improve visibility, configure your Jira workflow and your Kanban or Scrum board with an additional column that reflects the current testing status. For example, Ready for Testing/In Testing. You can also adjust this column to reflect other QA statuses, such as QA Passed/QA Failed.

This setup provides your team with a clearer view of each issue’s status. And it will be especially useful for QA, who often need to triage, retest, or validate fixes across multiple cycles. It also helps non-QA team members, such as PMs or developers. They can quickly see which tasks are waiting for test coverage or blocked in QA.

Adding QA-specific statuses improves collaboration and sets the foundation for better reporting and test traceability in Jira.

2. Include QA-relevant work item fields

To make test cases, bug reports, and verification tasks more actionable, it’s important to include fields that reflect QA's needs. These fields help capture the right context, improve collaboration with developers, and make issues easier to track and reproduce.

Here are a few helpful fields to make use of in QA-related work items:

• Description – Use it to clearly outline the scenario, expected result, and test validation steps. 
• Priority – Indicates how urgent an issue is. QA or PMs can use this to highlight blockers or critical bugs.
• Environment – Specifies where the issue occurred (e.g., staging, dev, iOS app, Safari on iPad).
• Labels – Useful for grouping test cases by release, feature, or component.
• Affects Version / Fix Version – Identifies where the issue was found and where it’s expected to be resolved.
• Components – Helpful if the product has multiple modules or subsystems.
• Attachments – Add screenshots, logs, or video recordings to support bug reports.
• Linked Issues – Connect bugs to related stories, epics, or test cases to track coverage and dependencies.

Not every field needs to be mandatory. If your process works better with fewer fields and more detail in the description, that’s perfectly fine. The goal is to keep the ticket informative enough to reduce back-and-forth and ensure accurate testing.

3. Review your use of sub-tasks 

It’s common for QA teams to create bugs as sub-tasks under a feature-related work item, especially when issues are found during development. While this may seem logical and well-organized, it often reduces visibility. Sub-tasks aren’t always shown on the board, making it harder for managers to track QA progress.

Another concern is that teams may decide to release a feature even if some minor bugs remain unfixed. If those bugs are sub-tasks, the parent work item can’t be marked as “Done” until all sub-tasks are closed, which may not accurately reflect the actual release state.

A better alternative is to log bugs as separate work items using Jira’s native work type, Bug, and link them to the related feature. This preserves traceability without limiting visibility or blocking release planning. 

4. Create a separate work type for Test Cases

Just as bugs have their own work type in Jira, test cases deserve the same treatment. While some teams use sub-tasks under stories or epics to represent tests, this setup can quickly become hard to manage.

Instead, create a separate Test Case work type in your Jira project. This allows you to manage tests independently, assign them directly, and track their progress across sprints or releases.

Using dedicated Jira issue types makes it easier to track bugs, reuse test cases, link them to related work items, and even report on test coverage. Combined with labels or components, this approach also improves filtering and organization, especially when your QA team is managing a large volume of tests across multiple features.

5. Don’t bury minor bugs in the Backlog

Low-priority bugs often pile up in the backlog, eventually becoming invisible and ignored. But small issues can have a big impact, especially if users encounter them repeatedly. Over time, these seemingly minor frustrations can erode trust and drive users toward more stable alternatives.

To prevent this, make it a habit to address some of these work items regularly. During backlog grooming, aim to pull a few lower-priority bugs into each sprint. Even addressing a handful of minor issues at a time helps improve overall product quality and user experience.

6. Use Bug Report templates

Bug reporting can quickly become chaotic without a consistent structure. Incomplete or unclear reports lead to delays, extra back-and-forth, and misunderstandings between QA and developers. A bug report template helps standardize the process, making tickets faster to write and easier to act on.

A bug report template is a reusable text for the Description field of a Jira work item. It contains placeholders for crucial details such as the environment, steps to reproduce, and expected behavior. Using a pre-defined format helps the team to report new issues consistently and clearly.

Below is an example of such a bug template. Copy and paste this structure into a Jira ticket. Then, use Smart Templates to save it as a reusable template or assign it automatically to all new Bug work items.

Environment

// Please fill out the following:

Operating system: {e.g. MacOS, Windows10}

Browser and version: {e.g. Chrome 124.0, Safari 17.4.1}

Software version: {e.g. V1.51}

Environment: {e.g., prod, staging, testing}

Steps to reproduce

// Please add the steps that are necessary to reproduce a bug

1.

2.

…

Expected Result

// Please describe how the functionality is intended to work

Actual Result

// Please explain what happens when the bug is reproduced

…

7. Implement Test Case templates 

Similar to the Bug template, you can create a Test Case template to speed up test creation and reduce manual work. 

Having a ready-made test case structure allows you to focus on what to test rather than how to document it. It also reduces the likelihood of overlooking key details, especially when tests are written by multiple team members. Over time, this consistency makes it easier to review, update, and reuse test cases across projects.

You can start by outlining the general structure: scenario, expected result, and validation steps. Then, save it as a reusable template for future use. We’ll explore the step-by-step process a bit later, in the “How to create a test case template” section. 

8. Reuse predefined test scenarios with Test Suite templates 

A Test Suite template is a collection of specific, pre-written test cases that are reused regularly, for example, during regression testing. This type of template differs from the Bug and Test Case templates. Unlike the latter, it’s not a text that can be copy-pasted into a work item description. In Jira, a Test Suite template consists of a set of work items, such as an epic (test suite) with multiple tasks containing test cases.

Imagine your team ships a new release every two weeks. Each time, you need to test the same set of features to ensure nothing breaks. Instead of manually recreating test work items, you can reuse your test cases.

Utilize Smart Templates for Jira to organize your tests under a single epic, forming a reusable test suite template. In the example below, each task included in the epic contains a pre-written test case. 

You can then configure automation to recreate this set of work items before every release. When it’s time for regression testing, your team will already have everything in place - pre-assigned tasks with detailed instructions, ready to go. 

Implementing such templates is very helpful for test case management in Jira.

9. Track test execution with checklists

Without a dedicated test management tool, teams risk ending up with fragmented documentation, skipped validation steps, and inconsistent bug tracking. This issue is difficult to tackle with Jira’s native functionality alone. 

Smart Checklist helps bridge this gap by bringing testing directly into Jira work items. Teams can write, organize, and track detailed testing steps - all within the same workflow they already use. This approach enhances consistency, ensures all critical checks are covered, and keeps the QA process manageable without adding extra overhead.

With Smart Checklist, teams can:

• Set clear pre-release validation steps to ensure all tests are completed before deployment.
  
  
• Track manual test execution directly in Jira, marking off completed and pending tasks as they go.
  
  
• Record bug reproduction steps within work items, helping developers quickly understand and replicate issues.
  
  
• Keep all testing documentation inside Jira by using structured checklists, eliminating the need for external documents or Excel spreadsheets.

As a result, using step-by-step checklists ensures that all aspects of a feature are thoroughly tested without missing anything.

10. Keep comments focused and relevant

Comments in work items can be valuable for QA, offering extra context or clarifying how a feature works. But when overloaded with back-and-forth discussion, they quickly become time-consuming to sort through.

Jira isn’t meant to replace team chat tools, so it’s best to keep detailed discussions in Slack or other messengers. Once decisions are made, summarize the key points or final requirements directly in the ticket. This keeps work items clear, actionable, and easier to review during testing.

11. Use linked issues to track dependencies

Linking related work items in Jira helps you see the bigger picture. For QA, this means connecting test cases to the user stories or bugs they cover. It creates a clear map of what’s being tested and ensures that every feature has corresponding validation.

You can also use links to track dependencies, like bugs blocking a release or tests waiting for implementation. This makes it easier to manage priorities, identify gaps in coverage, and communicate the status of QA work across the team.

Taking these 10 steps will help you adjust Jira for testers and make your QA workflows more efficient.

How we manage tests in Jira with the help of templates

In our team, we use various templates to speed up and standardize processes and improve Jira test management. In particular, we’ve implemented bug templates and test case templates. 

A test case template is a structured plan that outlines the main steps for testing a software feature and includes placeholders for feature-specific information.

Instead of building each test from scratch or copying it from elsewhere, we save templates directly in Jira. Once set up, they can be automatically applied to specific work item types, helping us save time and avoid missing key details.

How to create a test case template in Jira

A generalized Jira test case template is a valuable tool for any QA team. It offers a reusable structure based on your company’s testing standards, making it easier to document test cases consistently. You can then add specific steps as needed, without having to rebuild the format each time. This approach reduces manual work, saves time, and helps maintain a uniform testing process across the team.

Let’s explore how to create a template like the one below:

//Paste into the Summary field: 

## Test Case {{Number}}: {{Feature_Name}} || {{Project}}

//Paste into the Description field:

Description:

[Briefly describe what this test case verifies]

Preconditions:

[Any setup required before execution]

[Example: User is logged in]

Test Steps & Expected Results:

Step 1: [Describe action]

Expected result: [Describe expected outcome]

Step 2: [Describe action]

Expected result: [Describe expected outcome]

Step 3: [Describe action]

Expected result: [Describe expected outcome]

[Add more steps below]

Test Status: [Not run]

Step-by-step instructions

Jira doesn’t offer built-in support for creating templates, so teams often turn to third-party tools to fill the gap. Let’s see how this can be done with the help of Smart Templates for Jira. This solution allows you to save any work item or a whole set of Jira tasks as a reusable template.

• Install Smart Templates for Jira from the Atlassian marketplace. If you require admin permissions to install apps, contact your Jira administrator. 
• Open a work item that will serve as the basis for your template and draft its structure. You can also copy the template from the example we provided above.
• Customize the structure before saving it as a template (optional). You can specify assignees, fill out work item fields, add variables, and include checklists with Smart Checklist for Jira.
• Click Save structure as template in the Smart Templates section of your work item. Give your template an informative name and save it. 
• Add variables (optional). You can also include changing values in your template, such as the name of the feature you are testing. This allows you to adjust one template for multiple test cases. Open the Smart Templates tab of your Jira project. Then, select your template from the list -> click three dots -> Edit -> Variables. There, provide the names for your variables and select their type. In the example below, {{Number}} and {{Feature_Name}} are text, and {{Project}} is a single-choice select list. 

When a new work item is created from this template, you will see a pop-up prompting you to select Project 1 or Project 2 from the drop-down list and type in the Number and Feature name. Please see this Variables Guide for more details.

After this, you can manually create a test case from this template whenever necessary. Here’s an example of what the result can look like once the variables have been applied and once you have added feature-specific steps to your test case:

How to automatically add a template to all Test Case work items

For greater efficiency, you can assign your generalized test case template to a specific work type. This is where the Test Case work type comes in handy again. As a result, every new work item of this type will include the structured template by default. 

To set this up, add a custom work item type (issue type) to your Jira project and set up a rule using Automation for Jira. This rule will automatically apply your saved template whenever a new Test Case work item is created. Follow this guide to integrate Smart Templates with Automation for Jira.

Implementing test case templates alongside automation allows you to further adapt Jira for testing.

How to create a test suite template in Jira

Let’s revisit the earlier example of a test suite template. In this setup, the test suite is saved as an epic containing multiple test case work items. 

It’s a practical approach for teams that run regular regression tests on the same features. By scheduling automated epic creation, you’ll have a complete, pre-assigned test suite ready when it’s time to test.

Step-by-step instructions

• Install Smart Templates for Jira from the Atlassian marketplace. The solution works with Jira Cloud and Jira Data Center. 
• Create an epic that will serve as a test suite and add the required work items with test cases.
• Click Save structure as template, name your template, and save it. 

If needed, you can also include checklists with detailed instructions in your test cases. This can be done with the help of Smart Checklist for Jira.

Once everything is ready, you can generate new epics containing test cases from this template anytime you need. This can be done both manually and automatically.

How to generate Test Suite work items automatically on a schedule

Use Smart Templates’ Scheduler to automate the creation of recurring test work items. This is especially useful for teams that run regular regression tests.

In the example below, the scheduler is set to create a test suite (epic) with related test cases (sub-tasks) every two weeks on Wednesday, just in time for the next test cycle. This ensures that the testers have ready tasks with test cases by the time they need to perform regression testing for the next release.

To enable this, navigate to your list of smart templates, choose the one you want, and click the three dots -> Edit -> Scheduler.

How to view all Test Cases created from a template

Navigate to the History tab in the Smart Templates’ Edit menu. This view shows you a list of all work items created from a particular template. There, you can review the details and check the log statuses for each work item:

Top 10 hands-on tips for writing tests that will help you use Jira for testing effectively

1. Use a Clear Naming Pattern

Start the test case title with “Test Case:” followed by the feature name (e.g., Test Case: Login Functionality). This makes it easy to identify and search within Jira.

2. Stick to a Consistent Structure

A solid test case typically includes three parts:

• Scenario – what you’re testing (e.g., login with valid credentials)
• Expected Result – the correct behavior if the feature works as intended
• Validation – how you’ll test it

Using this structure helps you create clear, reliable, and reusable tests.

3. Write a Purpose-Driven Description

Explain what the feature does and why it matters to the user. A clear purpose provides your team with better context for what’s being tested.

4. Define User Interactions

Describe the user behavior required to achieve the expected outcome. This ensures all necessary actions are reflected in the test and nothing is missed.

5. Break Down the Test Steps

Use a step-by-step format to guide execution. Include details like navigation paths, button names, and input values. Specify the expected results for each step.

6. Prioritize Based on Impact

Rank your test cases by criticality. This helps define smoke and regression test scopes more effectively.

7. Link to Jira Requirements

Associate each test case with relevant user stories, requirements, and epics. This ensures traceability,  allows for identifying dependencies, and shows test coverage for each feature. This is one of the important things to do when you use Jira for testing. Without linking tickets properly, things can quickly become chaotic.

8. Categorize with Labels

Group test cases by components, use cases, or user personas. Add consistent labels to the Jira Label field to improve filtering, test management, and reporting.

9. Cover Alternate Scenarios

Add variations to test for edge cases, invalid inputs, and unexpected user behavior. This boosts confidence in feature reliability.

10. Add Checklists

Use tools like Smart Checklist to structure test cases more effectively within Jira. This is especially helpful for creating reusable test templates, for example, for regression testing.

These practical tips will come in handy when you use Jira for testing.

Adapt Jira for testing with specialized add-ons

Despite all the optimization, it may still not be enough to compensate for Jira Software’s lack of built-in test management. To tackle this challenge, you can turn to specialized test case management tools available on the Atlassian Marketplace. These tools are built to support structured, test-focused work directly inside Jira. Here are some of the most effective solutions that allow you to tailor Jira for testers needs.

Xray

Xray for Jira is a full-featured test management app. It supports both manual and automated testing inside Jira. QA teams can plan, design, run, and report on tests - all in one place. Xray links test cases to requirements and defects, so teams can track the QA process at every stage of software development.

For more convenient test management, Xray uses specific work types, such as Test Plans, Tests, Test Sets, and Test Executions. You can run tests and track progress across different environments. Xray also integrates with Selenium, Cypress, JUnit, and CI/CD tools, such as Jenkins and Bamboo. Additionally, it generates Reports showing test coverage, pass/fail rates, and other analytics. This is one of the top choices when it comes to optimizing Jira for testing.

Zephyr Squad 

The Zephyr Squad add-on is another test management app for Jira that helps QA teams organize and track testing within agile projects. It supports manual test execution and automated reporting. It allows agile teams to sync automated test results from JUnit, TestNG, and CI/CD tools. 

It links test cases directly to Jira work items and enables you to monitor test progress in real time through Jira dashboards. Zephyr also offers strong test data management and detailed reporting to improve QA visibility.

QMetry (QTM4J)

Another great solution to customize Jira for testers is QMetry (QTM4J). This robust test management tool brings full test lifecycle support into Jira. It offers native BDD support, reusable test assets, and version control. QA teams can build cross-project reports, integrate with CI/CD pipelines and Open REST APIs, and manage test data with parameterization. QMetry also supports secure collaboration with detailed user and group-level permissions and built-in Confluence integration.

Katalon

Katalon is a widely used automation testing platform that integrates with Jira to support full-cycle test management. It enables teams to automate software testing for web, API, mobile, and desktop apps using built-in templates and keywords. Katalon also provides detailed test reports and analytics. This makes it easier to track test results, link them to Jira work items (Jira issues), and present the outcomes to stakeholders.

Is using Jira for testing a good idea?

In this article, we explored various ways to adapt Jira for testers and their needs. While nothing will change the fact that Jira is not a dedicated test management tool, there’s a lot of ways to enhance its functionality. If you take the time and effort to set up Jira test case templates, leverage Jira’s native automation, create dedicated QA work types, and power all this up with add-ons, you can realize that using Jira for testing can be a feasible option. Most importantly, it allows for more efficient collaboration within your team, and you can work on the dev’s inputs and bug reports without tool switching.