Test management tool for Jira that supports modification of test execution steps

Question

We are looking for a test management tool for Jira. Our QA use exploratory testing, so they create test cases with a few general steps and then they update those steps while executing the test. Basically, they want to edit (update/add/delete) the steps of the test run created from the test, without changing the original test.

It seems like it's not possible with Zephyr or Xray.
Do you know of other tools that provide this kind of functionality?

Alex Christensen · Answer

In addition to what's already been suggested, I also recommend taking a look at TestFLO from inTENSO. It's a pretty flexible add-on, in my opinion, and it gives you the ability to do what you're asking.

Julia_Ballos_Shefi · Answer

In the traditional approach, each test has steps created in advance and describing exactly how to execute the test. The test runs inherit those steps and the test is performed exactly the same way, every time it is executed.

In exploratory testing, one test can be executed differently every time it is executed. Our QA write tests with very general steps or without steps at all. When they execute the test, they write down the steps they performed in order to test the objective of the test.  The original test is not updated with those steps - they are part of the specific test run.

It's ok if you don't agree with this technique - there are a lot of different methodologies out there, you don't have to embrace them all :)

From what I see SynapseRT doesn't offer the functionality we are looking for.

Thanks for your reply!

Cheney Ma [Go2Group] · Answer

From my QA experience, the use case you mentioned above is not a valid one for QA testing, at least it is not a best pratice for test process.
If you are going to test different scenarios, you should start from different test cases. Instead of using the same test case, but later change the orginal test scenarios (described in test case) from test execution (update/add/delete), normally test execution is a snapshot of your orginal test case and not allowed to edit steps there.

In SynapseRT, you can clone a test case with steps, and then do minor modifications to make it suiable for new test scenario.
And then create 'Add Hoc Test Run' from each test case to record your exploratory testing results.
You also can add 'Comments' for each of your test execution (started from the same test case) to record the addtional execution information.