How to choose testing tools for your team’s goals

The market offers a large number of testing tools, but not every tool can be right for you. Because the results of testing highly depend on choosing the right tool, we will help you define the key criteria tool selection and provide examples of the most effective software testing tools.

Test Management

Test management is one of the important parts of the testing process.The goals of test management are timely execution of tasks by team members, monitors the quality of these tasks, and generally controls the test process. For the test manager, it’s important to detect the problem in time and solve it. Therefore, for coordinated work, a manager needs a tool that can help manage the team, collect results, and conduct tests.

What is a test management tool? This is a tool that helps optimize testing management, keeps reports on performed tests, test plans, and allows you to interact with other members in the testing process. All tools differ in a set of functions and features.

Important criteria for choosing a tool:

1. Regular reporting. The tool should provide a detailed report after each test and save such a report to be possible to compare the results of performed tests. The reporting should contain such data as test status, numbers of passed and failed tests, the progress of the test plan, list of performed tests, etc. The reports help testers to find problem areas in software testing and report about the results to the client.

2. Integration with other testing tools. If the test management tool integrates with other programs, such as bug tracking programs, this is the right choice. Such functionality is important for a quick team response to a detected error.

3. Adaptability and flexibility. It is important to be able to configure parameters for each of test-cases while working with them. Testing software engineers conduct a large number of tests, and the tool should provide enough features to customize the test for each case.

Examples of tools:

TestTrail

• Integration with Jira.
• Real-time test results.
• Management of test cases and test cycles.
• Possibility to create, store, and edit test scripts.
• The ability to combine test cases for different operating systems, platforms, browsers.

Xray

• Integration with Jira.
• Integration with automated testing systems, CI integrations.
• Built-in REST API.

PractiTest.

• Integration with bug trackers and automation tools.
• The ability to reuse tests, flexibility and the ability to customize workflows.
• Data visualization.

Automation testing

Automation testing is the opposite of manual testing. Automated testing uses software to detect bugs in code without human intervention in the process. Such testing saves time and enhances human efficiency, but requires a large budget. Automation testing is suitable for large projects, regression testing, performance testing, load testing, or highly repeatable functional test cases.

Even though tests are performed automatically, manual testers and developers also take part in this process, for example, they create test cases. Therefore, when choosing a tool for automated testing, it is necessary to consider the needs of each participant in the process.

What is an automation testing tool? It's a tool that allows you to automate part of the test process with minimal human intervention.

Important criteria for choosing a tool:

1. Availability of training documentation, manuals, technical support. Your team can include both beginners and experienced staff. Some of them might not have come across automated testing or a specific program. It is important that each member of the team can delve into the process without wasting extra time. Some tools provide lessons on working with their products and ongoing support.

2. Cross-platform. Some automated testing tools are developed for specific platforms only. The owners of the program or application want to cover as many platforms as possible, this fact affects on product testing. Therefore, to optimize the testing process, select tools that can support multiple platforms and OS. Also, note that the products must work on previous versions of the OS.

3. Integration Continuous. According to Katalon 55%, QA engineers pay attention to this feature choosing automation tools. Continuous integration allows you to identify errors in the program code in the early stages, which reduces the cost of fixing an error. CI is a software development practice in which developers constantly merge code into one common branch. Automated testing is a requirement for CI. Therefore, pay attention to the tool that supports CI implementation.

Examples of tools:

Selenium

• Open-source tools with support for a large number of programming languages (Java, Python, C #, Ruby, Groovy, JavaScript and others).
• Supports several operating systems and browsers.
• For a full-fledged work of automated testing with Selenium you should use third-party platforms.

TestingWhiz.

• Codeless test automation tool.
• Integrate with Jira, Mantis, TFS, and FogBugz bug tracking tools.
• Has the ability to save and reuse run tests in browsers.
• Record test cases and allows you to see detailed information about the testing progress. Especially useful in regression tests, due to built-in keywords.

Ranorex Studio.

• Support for multiple platforms
• Ability to test iOS and Android on real devices or simulators.
• Integration with Selenium.

Performance testing

Performance testing is a type of testing that determines how the components of a system
work in certain circumstances. Performance testing is a broad term that includes different types of testing: load testing, stress testing, volume testing, etc. Such testing does not indicate defects in the program but sets the work standard for the program. Performance testing determines such parameters as speed, scalability, stability, resource usage under the conditions of a certain load.

What is the performance testing tool? This is a tool that generates customized activity on the system to evaluate software performance.

Important criteria for choosing a tool:

1. Replay the recorded business application/script support. The script allows you to simulate the actions of a real user and thus create a script for the operation of new business processes. Record availability allows the tool to connect to the browser and record the real interactions between the product and the user, and thus improve this scenario.
2. Availability of testing environment. Test environment - this environment is identical to the one in which the product will work, for each tested product created their test environment. Therefore, the tool should have enough resources and capacities to create a large number of testing environments. If the tool doesn't have such the feature, it will not be able to generate the required amount of traffic for your product.
3. Tool efficiency. This parameter means how many virtual users tool will be able to generate on one test working device. The higher this parameter, the more virtual users the tool can create. If you have a large business, you should pay attention to this indicator.

Examples of tools:

WebLOAD

• Has support for multiple protocols
• Ability to generate a load of the environment from a local computer or cloud services.
• The integrated development environment (IDE) allows you to customize, manage and record test.

Apache JMeter.

• An open-source tool that supports Java-based applications.
• Cross-browser and cross-platform.
• Supports multiple load injectors with a single controller.
• Has ability to a repetition of testing scenarios in real-time;
• Ability to integrate with BlazeMeter to increase test environment.

NeoLoad

• An open-source tool with integration with CI servers for automatic test execution.
• The tool is available for deployment in SaaS.
• Has the ability to simulate the activity of interactions with the end-user product, for example, submitting forms, searching, registering, etc.

Conclusion

Choosing the right test tool is not an easy, but very important task. In many ways, the test results depend on the right choice testing tool. No matter which tool you've chosen and on which purposes, it should comply with the following general principles:

• Simplicity and flexibility in use.
• Integration with all stages of product development
• Test Automation Maintenance
• Real-time reporting
• Easy adaptation of the tool to the work process
• Support for End-to-End Traceability